The Westward Traveller

Ashis Nandy is senior fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. He has written over fifteen books, including The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Oxford, 1983), Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness (Oxford, 1987) and an ambiguous Journey to the City: The Village and Other Odd Ruins of the Self in the Indian Imagination (Oxford, 2001).

Somdatta Mandal teaches at the Department of English & Other Modern European Languages, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan. A Fulbright scholar, she has received several scholarships and awards, including the British Council Charles Wallace Trust Scholarship and the Salzburg Seminar Fellowship. She has widely published in journals and books of national and international repute. Among some of her editorial ventures are: F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Centennial Tribute (1997); William Faulkner: A Centennial Tribute (1999); The Diasporic Imagination: Asian American Writing (2000); The American Literary Mosaic (co-editor, 2003); the Ernest Hemingway Companion (2003); and Cross-Cultural Transactions in Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (co-editor). Her recent published book is reflections, Refractions and Rejections: Three American Writers and the Celluloid World (2004).