Authors: Anannya Deb, Sumant Srivathsan, Vibhendu Tewari

1. The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Literature Quiz
2012
The Bombay Quiz Club
Anannya Deb
Sumant Srivathsan
Vibhendu Tewari

2. WARM UP
Where in Bombay can you see this black horse statue?

3. WARM UP
WHERE IN BOMBAY CAN YOU SEE THIS BLACK
HORSE STATUE?

4. WARM UP
At the Byculla Zoo

5. Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Literature Quiz 2012
THE PRELIMS

6. The Basics
• 25 questions
• Please be legible. If we can‟t read your answer, it‟s wrong.
• Last names are good, unless specified. For titles of works, exact
answers are required.
• There is no negative scoring. Leave no question unanswered.
• Starred questions will be used to break ties. Failing which, we will
provide swords.
• Mobile phones are detrimental to healthy quizzing. Turn them off.
• There are lots of audios and videos. Silence is appreciated.
All the best.

7. Prelims 1
What is the opening line of Madeleine L‟Engle‟s A Wrinkle in
Time, a winner of the Newbery Medal and the Lewis Carroll Shelf
Award, and a runner-up for the Hans Christian Anderson Award?

8. Prelims 1 - Answer
It was a dark and stormy night.

9. Prelims 2
The lack of English translations did not stop Agatha Christie from
issuing this imprimatur - “I don't know Urdu but have knowledge
of detective novels of the Sub-continent. There is only one original
writer - ____ ____”. Who was Christie referring to?

10. Prelims 2 - Answer
Ibne Safi, meaning “the son of
the pure”, the pseudonym used
by Asrar Ahmed

11. Prelims 3
Which all-time classic of American literature inspires the recent
Audi Quattro commercial? (Video Removed)

12. Prelims 3 - Answer
Moby Dick. This Audi Quattro
ad titled „Ahab‟ from Jan 2012
reimagines Herman Melville‟s
struggle between an obsessive
captain and an elusive white
whale as a story of a tow-truck
driver haunted by an Audi.

13. Prelims 4
For his courage in capturing the Volscian city in 493 BC,
Cominius, the Roman general leading the campaign, announced to
all that Caius Marcius “Wears the war‟s garland” and as he was the
conqueror of the Volscian city, asked everyone to “call him, with
all the applause and clamour of the host, CAIUS MARCIUS
__________”.
Fill in the blanks.

14. Prelims 4 - Answer
Coriolanus, the conqueror of
Corioli.

15. Prelims 5
Identify the writer in the visual.

16. Prelims 5
Identify this lady writer in the visual.

17. Prelims 5 - Answer
Harper Lee, in the gallery of
the Monroeville, AB
courthouse she made famous.

18. Prelims 6
Fill in the blanks.

19. Prelims 6 - Answer
Ravan and Eddie

20. Prelims 7
In war, when a city‟s defenders choose to abandon any further
military action, the opposing forces would be expected to march
in, and not attack forces or destroy property. The goal is to
prevent damage to historical monuments and loss of human life.
Some famous examples from World War II include:
• Brussels and Paris in 1940
• Belgrade in 1941
• Manila in 1942
• Rome in 1943
What is the term applied to towns placed under these
circumstances?

21. Prelims 7 - Answer
Open city

22. Prelims 8
According to the British tabloid press, Pippa Middleton is
currently in a relationship with George Percy, heir to the Duke of
Northumberland. He is known by a nickname, derived from his
residence, Alnwick Castle, shown below. What is this nickname?

23. Prelims 8
According to the British tabloid press, Pippa Middleton is
currently in a relationship with George Percy, heir to the Duke of
Northumberland. He is known by a nickname, derived from his
residence, Alnwick Castle, shown below. What is this nickname?

24. Prelims 8 - Answer
The Earl of Hogwarts, because Alnwick Castle was used to
represent the school in the Harry Potter movies.

25. Prelims 9
Penguin Ink is a series of limited edition reprints of popular
novels with new covers, launched in 2010 to commemorate 75
years of Penguin. What is special about the series?

26. Prelims 9
Penguin Ink is a series of limited edition reprints of popular
novels with new covers, launched in 2010 to commemorate 75
years of Penguin. What is special about the series?

27. Prelims 9 - Answer
The covers have all been designed by leading tattoo artists.

28. Prelims 10
Name this famous amateur lepidopterist.

29. Prelims 10
Name this famous amateur entomologist.

30. Prelims 10 - Answer
Vladimir Nabokov

31. Prelims 11
In the Dastangoi universe of sub-continental folklore and also in
Arabic fantasy literature, Koh-e-Kaf is the land of djinns (genies)
and paris (fairies). Historians put the location of Koh e-Kaf to a
narrow strip of 1,000 km by 600 km somewhere around the
Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, fitting into the Caucasus range
spread over Russia, Romania and Armenia/Turkey. The literal
translation of Koh-e-Kaf is very similar to what a 20th Century
author decided to call a geographical feature in his fictional
universe.
What does Koh-e-Kaf translate to?

32. Prelims 11 - Answer
Koh-e-Kaf translates to Mountain of Mist.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, the Misty Mountains run
between Eriador and the valley of the Anduin, and from Mount
Gundabad to Methedras.

33. Prelims 12
Queen Olympia tells the Oracle of Dodona of a dream that she
had, of a snake entering her and leaving its seed inside her. The
Oracle interprets this by saying that her child would be the
offspring of Zeus. Thus begins which trilogy, the first volume of
which was published in 1998?

34. Prelims 12 - Answer
The Alexander trilogy by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

35. Prelims 13
Ukiyo-e, the predominant artistic genre in Japan, is a form of
woodblock printing and painting that gained prominence in the
17th Century. In his Ukiyo Monogatari, Asai Ryōi defines ukiyo as:
… Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the
pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple
leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves in just
floating, floating; … refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating
along with the river current: this is what we call the ________
_____…
The titular narrator of a novel set in post-WWII Japan is a
practitioner struggling to come to terms with changes to his society,
with decadence and pleasure becoming a thing of the past. Name
the novel.

36. Prelims 13 - Answer
An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro

37. Prelims 14
The author says
“On a walk through Mochudi, north of Gaborone, I met a woman
who gave a chicken to the people with whom I was staying. I
remember thinking at the time: This is a remarkable woman – I
wonder what her life story is. I never found out, but this meeting
made me think that one day I would like to write about such a
woman – resourceful, amusing, and intelligent. Then, out of my
subconscious, knocking on the door so to speak, came ________
________. I wrote a short story about her, and then discovered that
I liked her and wanted to continue to record her life.”
Which author, and the character? (No Part Points)

38. Prelims 14 - Answer
Alexander McCall Smith and
Mma Ramotswe from his No 1
Ladies Detective Agency series

39. Prelims 15
Identify the author.

40. Prelims 15
Identify the author.

41. Prelims 15 - Answer
Theodore Geisel, better known
as Dr. Seuss.

42. Prelims 16
The following quotes are by two writers who have explored the
same myth, one in a 1959 Marathi novel, and the other in a 1961
Kannada play.
Name the title and the two authors.

43. Prelims 16
The following quotes are by two writers who have explored the
same myth, one in a 1959 Marathi novel, and the other in a 1961
Kannada play.
______‟s tale is a subsidiary part of the As I said, my first play ______ was about
Mahabharata. It is not the central theme. A
Name the title and the two authors.myths. And the first play I wrote on my way
writer of fiction would be guilty of to England, ______ is very much like
transgression if he made any basic change Antigone, although at that time it seemed
in the character of Rama and Sita or to me that I picked up the theme from
Krishna and Draupadi. But the same rule nowhere. Now I find it had a certain
does not hold in respect of secondary relevance. The relevance was that it is
characters…It is for this reason that the about adults, the elder generation
Shakuntala of Kalidas is a little different demanding of younger generation that the
from that of Vyas. The Rambhadra of younger generation should sacrifice itself,
Bhavabhuti is not the Rama of the first should give its use. ______ is a king who
poet. Thus it is that ______ the novel is in the prime of his life is cursed to old age
different from ______ the character in and goes around asking people, “Will you
Mahabharata. take my old age?”

44. Prelims 16 - Answer
Yayati.
V. S. Khandekar‟s 1959 Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel
and Girish Karnad‟s 1961 debut play

45. Prelims 17
Ismat Chughtai‟s novel Ajeeb Aadmi (A Very Strange Man) is
about a suicidal actor-director Dharam Dev, his doomed passion
for his discovery Zarina Jamaal, a dancer from Madras whom he
grooms into a great actress, and Dev‟s playback-singer wife
Mangala.
What three-word phrase best describes such a novel?

46. Prelims 17 - Answer
Roman à clef, French for "novel
with a key", is form of literature
about real life, overlaid with a
façade of fiction, popularised
by Madeleine de Scudery in the
17th Century through her thinly
veiled stories featuring political
and public figures.
Chughtai‟s novel is about Guru
Dutt, Waheeda Rehman &
Geeta Dutt.

47. Prelims 18
On 11 March 1963, Col. Jean-Marie
Bastien-Thiry became the last
person in France to be executed by
firing squad. The crime of which he
was convicted forms the prologue of
a work of fiction. The rest of the
novel is a fictional account of events
that aimed to achieve what he had
failed to do.
Name the novel.

48. Prelims 18 - Answer
He attempted and failed to
assassinate Charles de Gaulle.
What follows is the plot of
Frederick Forsyth‟s The Day of
the Jackal.

49. Prelims 19
This is a file photo of a bureaucrat, shot in a setting which, several
years later, became the milieu of his debut novel. Identify him.

50. Prelims 19
This is a file photo of an acclaimed debut novelist shot in a setting
which became the milieu of his book. Identify him.

51. Prelims 19 - Answer
Jamil Ahmad, author of The Wandering Falcon

52. Prelims 20
Identify both men.

53. Prelims 20
Identify both men.

54. Prelims 20 - Answer
Lawrence and Gerald Durrell, brothers and writers.

55. Prelims 21
A Bench by the Road is a 2006 project established in honour of a
litterateur's 75th birthday. The project‟s name is inspired from the
novelist‟s remarks in an 1989 interview:
"There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about,
to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves …
There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or
park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no
small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial
that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New
York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi.
And because such a place doesn't exist … the book had to.“
Name the novelist, and the book.

56. Prelims 21
A Bench by the Road is a 2006 project consisting of roadside
benches in honour of a litterateur's 75th birthday. The project‟s
name is inspired from the novelist‟s remarks in an 1989 interview:
"There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about,
to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves …
There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or
park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no
small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial
that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New
York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi.
And because such a place doesn't exist … the book had to.“
Name the novelist, and the book.

57. Prelims 21 - Answer
Toni Morrison, Beloved

58. Prelims 22
David Peterson, a language expert, explains his process for
creating a new language based on a small sample of words present
in a series of books for a warrior tribe whose world revolves
around their horses. What language was he building for use in the
television adaptation of the same series of books?
(Question Modified / Audio Removed)

59. Prelims 22 - Answer
Dothraki, for HBO‟s adaptation of George R. R. Martin‟s The
Game of Thrones, the first book in his A Song of Ice and Fire
series.

60. Prelims 23
Identify the writer of the poem heard in this classic Levi‟s “Your
Life…” commercial.
(Question Modified / Video Removed)

61. Prelims 23 - Answer
Charles Bukowski. The poem is The Laughing Heart.

62. Prelims 24
Name the character and the poem from this still
(Question Modified / Video Removed)

63. Prelims 24
Name the character and the poem.

64. Prelims 24 - Answer
Allen Ginsberg, played by James Franco, reciting Howl in the film
of the same name.

65. Prelims 25
Name the Nobel Prize winner who wrote these lines based on the
photograph? The reader is reading from a translation of the
original poem.
(Question Modified / Audio Removed)

66. Prelims 25
Name the Nobel Prize winner who wrote these lines? The reader
is reading from a translation of the original poem.

67. Prelims 25 - Answer
Wislawa Szymborska – Photograph from September 11,
translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislav Baranczak.