Anurima Chanda talks nonsense superheroes!

Anurima Chanda is the real superhero in this essay about nonsense superheroes. She looks at the history of superheroes, how they end up in India--and how a few intrepid writers dare to do something different in "a unique margin within the marginal superhero culture of India." That is, they write nonsense superheroes. And the ones she discusses happen to be in This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse, in poems and stories by Samit Basu and Kaushik Viswanath. By making nonsense superheroes, she writes, they are creating a "radically new way of engaging with dominating power structures, neither through concurrence or conflict, but by creating ruptures within these structures to destabilise the circle itself." Bravo!

Click here to read her article!

Here, we see Basu's Pehelwan, of the "mighty, manly muscles" (drawn by Priya Kuriyan)

A Guide to Practical Nonsense, a SCBWI India Event

A Guide to Practical Nonsense--a SCBWI India event

with Michael Heyman, Colonel of the 5th Nonsense Brigade 

Thursday, May 21  

5:00pm - 6:00pm

Max Mueller Bhavan, 3, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, India 110001

Literary nonsense has a long tradition, going back to Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sukumar Ray, all of whom have proven the nobility of this serious and silly, rebellious and strict form. Yet, whether we as writers and illustrators strive to work solidly in the tradition of nonsense, or just want our work to shine a little with the tradition, there are many simple techniques we can use to throw a little, or a lot, of nonsense into our books for children. In this talk, Michael Heyman gives a guide onwhat nonsense is and how to use it.