biography

Any book that claims to offer an insight into Anna Wintour, the longterm editor-in-chief of US Vogue, is a guaranteed bestseller. This is as true of fiction (The Devil Wears Prada, by Wintour’s former assistant, Lauren Weisberger) as it is of schlocky biographies (Front Row: the Cool Life and Hot Times of Anna Wintour by Jerry Oppenheimer) and hatchet jobs by those who know her (2020’s The Chiffon Trenches, in which her former close friend and colleague, the late André Leon Talley, claimed she is not “capable of simple…

In a late short story by Jean Rhys, a woman sees a pair of children standing near a house that is very familiar to her, by an exotic, flowering tree. “I used to live here once,” she tells them. They can’t see that she’s there; she is a ghost, haunting her old home. This story lends its title to Miranda Seymour’s new biography, which places Rhys’s upbringing in the Caribbean at the centre of the narrative. She was born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams in 1890, the daughter of a Welsh doctor and a white Creole mother descended…

In November 2012 Xi Jinping was made general secretary of the Chinese Communist party, the top spot in the country’s political system. Since March 2013 he has also been president, a largely ceremonial but diplomatically significant post. Having held those positions for almost a decade, and showing no sign that he plans to hand either on anytime soon, Xi is now sometimes described not just as the most powerful person in China, but the most powerful individual in the world.And yet we know relatively little about him, a fact…

Giacomo Casanova, that serial seducer of Enlightenment Europe, liked to think of himself as providing a social service. Whether it was romping in a gondola, or making out with two women at the same time (sisters were good, mothers and daughters even better) or getting it on with a girl who was passing herself off as a castrato (cross-dressing excited him), he insisted on the right of everyone involved to experience pleasure. According to Histoire de Ma Vie, the monumental and hugely priapic autobiography that he left…

In 1907, Ella Gwendoline (“Gwen”) Rees Williams sailed to England from Dominica, the Caribbean island of her birth, to attend school in Cambridge. Gwen, who was 16, had long dreamed of the motherland, but from the moment she landed at Southampton, her mood began to darken. If London, her first stop, was sooty and drab and populated by permanently indignant landladies, school was little better. She was mocked for her lilting accent by her classmates, who took particular pleasure in the fact that the maniac who is Mrs…

For all those who have occasionally wondered just what might lie behind the eternal sunglasses of the famously scary Anna Wintour, the author of a new biography of the longstanding editor-in-chief of American Vogue has momentous news: it seems that there is, after all, “a person there” (as opposed, you understand, to a robot programmed by the ghost of Oscar de la Renta). But while journalist Amy Odell has indeed found several witnesses willing to testify on the record to the existence of this corporeal being, she is,…

An authorised biography of AR Rahman will be out in August which will feature intimate interviews with the musical wizard, as well as anecdotes from key people from his life. In Notes of a Dream: The Authorized Biography of AR Rahman by Krishna Trilok, the multiple Oscar winner opens up about his philosophies: hope, perseverance, positivity and love. From his early days as a composer of ad jingles to his first big break into feature films, from his keenness to integrate new technology with a good old-fashioned…

Chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain arrives at the 65th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California September 15, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn/File PhotoTo be published by publishing imprint Ecco, The Oral Biography will be a compilation of stories shared by his closest friends.An authorized biography of the late Anthony Bourdain is in the works and set to hit bookshelves next fall. To be published by publishing imprint Ecco, The Oral Biography will be a compilation of stories shared…

Untold stories from the life and times of renowned film and stage actor Balraj Sahni will now be told in his biography, publishers Penguin Random House announced on Friday. Titled The Non-Conformist: Memories of My Father Balraj Sahni, the book has been written by his actor son Parikshit Sahni, and will hit stands in August. The late actor is considered one of the finest, most natural actors hailing from the golden era of Indian cinema. His performances in Indian classics such as Do Bigha Zamin and Garam Hawa…

Editor's Note: The excerpt below has been taken from the chapter The New Credo of Hindutva, of the book, Savarkar: The true story of the father of Hindutva written by senior Times journalist and historian, Vaibhav Purandare. Savarkar had entered the Cellular Jail a passionate promoter of Hindu–Muslim amity, having, among other things, lavished fulsome praise on the Muslim heroes of 1857 such as Awadh ruler Wajid Ali and Rohilkhand rebel chieftain Khan Bahadur Khan. But he came out of prison driven by a desire to…