Review: The Best of Quest

Quest was born in 1954, a magazine that was published out of Bombay (now Mumbai) with Nissim Ezekiel at its helm. After successfully publishing it for two decades the magazine collapsed during the Emergency period.

An intellectual magazine for the discerning reader with articles contributed by the best names that light up newspapers, magazines, academic journals and even television screens today. The common link between them? They all made their mark with a piece in Quest.

The Best of Quest brings to the reader the best of stories, essays and poems published in the magazine. Hence making the book a treasure trove of well written, well argued articles. It gives the reader insights into the political and social history of independent India.

Some of the articles in the book, in all honesty, were difficult for me to fathom or read through. But some were exceptionally brilliant. The book is edited by Lafeq Futehally, who worked as the Literary Editor with the Quest for over twenty years. Achal Prabhala who is a writer and researcher in Bangalore. Arshia Sattar who works with classical Indian Literature and teaches at various institutions across the country.

So you have eminent writers such as Nirad Chaudhuri, P.Lal. Jyotirmoy Datta, Khushwant Singh, Dilip Chitre, Ashis Nandy and others who have contributed towards the magazine. Poetry contributed by Dom Moraes, Kamala Das, Nissim Ezekiel. Mukul Sharma makes this section extremely interesting.

The pieces are well selected and show the kind of enrichment in terms of knowledge and thoughts the magazine brought to its readers. You know when you read through the book the editors have worked with a passion to make this book worth a collectible for every reader.

Do pick this book up to get a better understanding of the country we live in by the writers who are the very best in the industry today. The book is a fitting tribute to a man who headed the magazine.