On the occasion of the visit of the French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Rafarin in 2003, the French embassy had the brilliant idea of bringing out Indian editions of English translations of French literary works. The translations were not new or done by Indians but they were to be made available for the Indian public at affordable Indian rates.   Rupa France offers a collection co-edited with the Cultural Service of the Embassy of France in India. This is a collection not only of “‘classics’ but also unusual, odd voices often unheard of.” This aims to thus create “a most relevant picture of modern France.” It is now a given that this kind of representation in never easy or innocent of the politics of choice. Who and what works get to be printed in India raise interesting questions of representation. Is France represented in a kind of paradigmatic sweep or in a more specific contemporary mode? The classics that have stood the test of time are an easy option.   Writer, traveller, travel-writer, Malraux perhaps the writer best known to all Indians, fought in the Spanish civil war, was an active member of the French resistance during the Second World War, was an art lover and first minister of Cultural Affairs. Antimemoirs (1967/1968)* is a richly bound first release of Rupa France which also contains The Walnut-Trees of Altenburg, The Temptation of the West, The Royal Way, and The Human Condition. With about three chapters devoted to his travels to India in 1958, Antimemoirs is an obvious choice to begin this joint venture. These chapters deal with his interaction with Nehru first on India’s independence and recent past, then later with comparisons of Indian metaphysics with the western. He mentions in between visiting major sites of Shiva worship: Benares, Madurai, Ellora and Ajanta. Friend of Raja Rao, ‘India’s greatest expert on France’ and having met Jayaprakash Narayan before coming to India, he feels the presence of Gandhi everywhere and sees in his image the ‘last avatar of Vishnu’. Terming India as the ‘most affectionate country in the world’ whose ‘fields resembled French fields, but … [whose] dreams did not resemble French dreams’, Malraux shows his in-depth empathy with this country and his insight into the various facets of our country that marked him as the man of stature that he was. A good introduction to French perception of India in the 20th century.   George ...