Here are two very different yet very similar books of poems that lay bare the very nucleus of human existence in the age of modernity
This book is also a timely reminder of the great tradition of modern ornithology, long before bird-watching got fresh wind due to the easy access to cellphone photography and electronic bird guides
The author's individual story is a micro-reflection of the story of a nation, struggling for Independence, recognition and respect.
An attempt to capture in images and words what is happening to the world around us, ‘The Green Book’ is Amitava Kumar’s third book in the series after ‘The Blue Book’ and ‘The Yellow Book’
Born into a Muslim family helmed by strong women, Najma Heptulla made it to the top echelons of power. After 17 years as Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, she became synonymous with the Upper House of Parliament. Having worked...
Author Bhaichand Patel packs in quite a few characters in his slim novel for it to race forward smoothly with quite a few improbable twists
A book of criticism, ‘100 Years of A Passage to India’ goes beyond a simple, immediate critical reading of the novel
The book is set against the backdrop of a renaissance movement that swept across all castes and communities and subverted the basic fabric of a highly conservative society
‘The Legacy of Guru Dutt: 2025 Diary’ by Nasreen Munni Kabir is surprisingly insightful and delightful
Upamanyu Chatterjee’s ‘Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life’ is winner of the JCB Prize for Literature 2024
An ageing writer, who had been missing for decades, calls a press conference to announce the date of death. The media isn’t amused, except for one rookie reporter, who has been assigned by her editor the task of finding out...
Ashok Ahlawat is a loquacious ex-NDA veteran of self-confessedly middling military achievement, who deliberately, if not brazenly, flaunts his knowledge of classics in English literature, starting with Latin quotes and moving on to poet laureates, etc. Early on, he explains...
When KP Singh led the Deccan Horse contingent as an Army officer in the 1954 Republic Day parade, nobody could have imagined that he would emerge as one of India’s top business leaders. Known affectionately as KP, he says circumstances...
Devi Yesodharan’s novel masterfully captures the essence of “otherness”. It delves into the undefined gap that gnaws at the hearts of those who don’t belong, whether due to ethnicity, race, economic status, or simply not being in a place that...
While reading this book, I experience the anguish of a distinguished professor as she looks at the rise of the triumphant Hindutva, or the aggression implicit in the politics of majoritarianism and hyper-nationalism. Yes, Zoya Hasan’s new book reminds us...
Sujit Saraf’s ‘Island’ is a captivating exploration of isolation, ambition and the collision between modernity and indigenous life. Inspired by the tragic real-life encounter of American missionary John Chau with the Sentinelese in 2018, the novel reimagines this incident as...
How innocent we must seem when we don’t know our fate,” says Hanif Kureishi in ‘Shattered’. It is one of the truest lines I have read in a long time. A man is at his partner’s house in Italy, running...
Pain and suffering, the eternal woes of being mortal… How we all wish, at times, for the elixir of happiness, one that will grant us the supreme goal of contentment and free us from the cycle of desire. But what...
Madan Veera’s poetry, rooted deeply in the lived experiences of marginalised voices within Punjabi society, finds new life in English through ‘Narratives of the Excluded’, translated by TC Ghai. Spanning 85 selected poems from Veera’s five volumes published between 2001...
The Sentence by Gautam Bhatia. Westland. Pages 364. Rs 599 An impoverished young man, Jagat, is found guilty of murder and is sentenced to the sleep of death for a century. A century later, tensions run high in Peruma. As...
Past the middle of the 18th century, the East India Company had made a major stride at Plassey in its advent to the country when a king down the peninsula sought to check this imperialism. Thus, Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan...
The finest moment in Haroon Khalid’s new book is when Waris meets Bulleh Shah. Khalid’s imagination blazes, consuming and re-creating the fabled encounter. The writing is crystalline and dazzling, etching the encounter in a gem of an essay within the...
IN recent years, scholars have shown a growing interest in exploring the roots of Indian indigenous modernity, often termed “vernacular modernity”, and how it has shaped, and sometimes challenged, Indian secular democracy. In this context, ‘So Says Jan Gopal: The...
I write this from a metropolis, Delhi, caught in the thick of smog. Each year, as winter sets in, a toxic cocktail spreads through the north Indian airshed, leaving residents of the region equally vulnerable and frustrated. A cacophony of...
An excerpt from ‘Society Girl’ by Saba Imtiaz & Tooba Masood-Khan. Roli Books. Pages 331. Rs 595
South Asia Speaks is a recently formed writers’ collective that supports outstanding emerging talent from South Asia, given the precarious conditions of freedom of expression in the region. It offers annual fellowships to promising voices, including disabled writers. In 2022,...
Young Pitambar reluctantly limps his way to a ramshackle school to please his unlettered father. Looking for a formula to get rich, he chances upon the secret affair between the school principal and the music teacher, and using the magic...
Jim Corbett, who died in 1955, is widely known for ‘Man-Eaters of Kumaon’, his bestseller published in 1944, which was translated early on into several Indian languages. What is not as widely known is that Corbett himself was an early...