Between Friends

The author's wide-ranging interests are expressed in a new form in this book through an exchange of letters between two friends. The reader encounters, inter alia, themes from literature, matters of urgent contemporary concern such as the fault lines in democracies, the extent of injustice, the onus of responsibility, the role of intellectuals, the experience of migrants, the position of women, the continuing challenge of Gandhi's life and thought. The gravity of the contemporary situation both in India and elsewhere is not underestimated nor are the horrific crimes perpetrated in the twentieth century forgotten. The presenting of alter-native standpoints in friends' letters stimulates positive transformations of attitude and hopes for a more peaceful world.

As a student Margaret Chatterjee read Modern Greats (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at Oxford where she was awarded an exhibition at Somerville College. The background of her studies was always history. Subsequently she did intensive research on Gandhi's life and thought on which she has published eight books. Opportunities for teaching at university level in several countries brought her in contact with people from many cultures. She became increasingly interested in the life stories of those she met and her recent work recognises the stress on particular events and directions of change which historians perforce deal with in their own discipline, but maintains that it is most important to bear in mind the human interactions which take place between people regarded as ordinary but whom she believes are actually extraordinary.