P3’s Prakruti Maniar caught up with Kanishka Gupta, founder of one of the best literary agencies in India, Writer’s Side. The agent, who represents Daisy Rockwell, translator...
The Black Magic Women: Stories of Suffering and Survival, written by Moushumi Kandali and translated by Parbina Rashid is a must-read to understand racism in India against...
Indu Sudaresan’s historical fiction book, The Twentieth Wife, captures the drama of the lives of the Mughal kings and queens. Erudite, beautiful, and fiercely brilliant, Mughal Empress...
Translated from the French by Vidya Vencatesan A human saga that is both bleak and epic, The Cane Cutter’s Song tells the story of the indentured Tamil...
When you think of literature awards in India, we think of the JCB Prize, the Sahitya Akademi Prize, or Jnanpith Award which is India’s highest literary honour....
Read Akankshya’s review of Battles of Our Own by Odia writer Jagadish Mohanty, translated from the Odia by Himansu S. Mohapatra and Paul St-Pierre During the 1960-the...
Rakhshanda Jalil is an Indian writer, critic, translator, and literary historian. Jalil runs an organization called Hindustani Awaaz, devoted to the popularization of Hindi-Urdu literature and culture. Excerpts...
Mumbai – the city of dreams, glitz and glamour, with a boiling cauldron of intense passion, be it political, religious or personal. Among the chaos of trains...
The Worlds Within You by Shreya Ramachandran, a book about mental health, travels back and forth in memory and metaphors to confront mental health issues and find...
A book excerpt from the author’s debut novel It had been our complaint since childhood. ‘Speak up mai. Fight back. Become what you want to be.’ Being...
In light of noted Hindi writer Geetanjali Shree and her historic feat at the International Booker Prize 2022, Niyogi Books is honoured to re-introduce her debut novel Mai. Translated to English...
Prakruti Maniar interviews Sindhu Rajasekaran, author of Smashing The Patriarchy: A Guide for the 21-st Century Indian Woman. Excerpts from an email interview. What has your own...
Ministhy S is an IAS officer by day, and translator by night. She translate not just of Malayalam novels, but also Hindi and English worls. Prakruti Maniar...
Divided into three parts, a respectable woman narrates the psyche of Naga Community of Nagaland during and after 1944 Kohima war. a respectable woman not only talks...
Rumours of Spring is a part of our series, Kashmir Files, which seeks to present multiple perspectives on the history and social reality of the valley, and...
This book is a part of our series, Kashmir Files, which seeks to present multiple perspectives on the history and social reality of the valley. T. D....
Excerpt from the book on feminism, Smashing the Patriarchy: A guide for the 21st century Indian Woman. Published with permission from Aleph Book Company. Whose Feminism Is...
For a multilingual country such as ours, translation is as much a political act as a cultural one; in reading about the different cultures and peoples each...
Like its precedents, The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told selected and translated by Poonam Saxena brings forth 25 stories representing the finest short fiction in Hindi literature...
Jenny Bhatt is a writer, translator and a book-critic with two acclaimed books out over the last year – Each of Us Killers, that was out in September...
Pankaj Mishra is a public intellectual, “one of the great thinkers” as reads his introduction on the cover jacket of his latest book: Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race...
Fence by Ila Arab Mehta translated from Gujrati by Rita Kothari follows the journey of Fateema Lokhandwala from her formative years as the daughter of a scrap...
The Indian literary canon has a plethora of titles from across regions, cultures and languages and since we are always on a hunt of books from different...
Authors Luc Leruth with Jean Dreze bring the outsiders’ perspective into this story of learning and unlearning about life, society, culture, and more in rural north India....
A Palace of Illusions is a reimagining of the world-famous Indian epic, the Mahabharata —told from the perspective of an astonishing woman, Draupadi. Relevant to today’s war-torn...
#Bookstagram happens to be one of the most dedicated communities to reading and books. It is that corner of social media which book nerds, readers, booklovers and...
ইরফান লেখক: শুভঙ্কর ঘোষ রায় চৌধুরী ঋত প্রকাশন মূল্য: ১০০ ——————- “কাশী জায়গাটাই এমন, দুঃখে কাঁদায় না, সুখে হাসায় না।” ইরফান কে এই ইরফান? সে কি এক...
An appeal to the Lord to arise and save the world, the Venkatesa Suprabhatam is the first of four recitations that are sung together every morning in...
Even before translation and robust marketing was the order of the day, Indian diasporic writers have put Indian stories on the map of world literature. Salman Rushdie,...
What could man do when even Gods were helpless drunk with desire, desire that Devadasis were adept in kindling and keeping ablaze in bodies of men who...
A review of Sujata Sabnis’s ‘Blood on the Sands‘ Trigger Warnings: rape, mental illness, death, foeticide Blood on the Sands by Sujata Sabnis is a masterful tale...
The Green Revolution resulted in spectacular advancements in Indian agriculture. Having achieved food security for its citizens, the country has now become a net exporter of different...
A professor by profession and a writer by choice, author Pratibha Ray undoubtedly is a household name in Odisha and in most parts of India through her...
Colaba, the southernmost tip of Mumbai, is Mumbai’s most iconic neighbourhood. This bustling locality—with the Gateway of India, the world-famous Taj Mahal Hotel, and the Colaba Causeway,...
Tejimola is an Assamese folktale with the standard motifs of a step-mother and a troubled daughter, which was first published in 1911, by the renowned Assamese author...
The Awasthis of Aamnagri by Shubha Sarma and published by Niyogi Books is a sweet, nostalgic trip to a time when joint families lived together, spent summers...
An interesting folktale, The Two Storks, prevalent in the Sindh province of Pakistan, sends a very interesting moral message. According to this story, in a tamarind tree...
Although Dalit literature originated in Maharashtra from the 1950s – 1960s, the genre, that gave expression to a historically supressed community, has emerged in all Indian literatures,...
Translated by O L Nagabhushana Swamy and Pranava Manjari Chakori by Chandrasekhar Kambar, translated from Kannada by O L Nagabhushana Swamy and Pranava Manjari, is a stunning...
In this episode of India Booked, host Ayushi Mona talks to Rajat Chaudhuri about ‘The Butterfly Effect‘, on how his work as a climate activist is reflected...
This book is an artistic treatment of lives at the margins Gurdial Singh is one of the towering figures in Indian, not only Punjabi, literature. His fiction...
Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukhejee frequently pops up in lists of Best Indian Books Written in English or Set in America or Books You Should Read if...
Although a novel that opens with a train-burning might somewhat naturally bring to mind the Gujarat pogrom following the Godhra train-burning in February 2002, Megha Majumdar’s acclaimed...
Translated from Odia by Pradip Bhattacharya Like many Indian households I grew up on a staple diet of mythological stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata. With the stories...
Sheila Kumar’s Kith and Kin is a collection of nineteen short stories centred on the Melekat family – an upper-caste Nair family from Kerala, all related through...
In this episode of India Booked, host Ayushi Mona talks to Veio Pou, about his brilliant new debut novel, Waiting for the Dust to Settle, published by...
In 1947, the new entity known as “India” officially became a sovereign state, gladly relinquishing it’s former ‘british colony’ status. And that is where the story ends....
Chemmeen is written by T.S. Pillai and translated from Malayalam by Narayana Menon Set in the “tiny fishing villages of Kerala on the southwest coast” (in this...
In this episode of India Booked, host Ayushi Mona talks to Vikram Sampath, the best selling author of four acclaimed biographies, ‘Splendours of Royal Mysore: the Untold...
Difficult Daughters by Manju is an intimate and gripping tale of three women, Virmati, Shakuntala and Swarna, set in the pre-independence era who choose to not conform...
Short Story Thursday is a weekly series dedicated to highlighting the short-stories from Indian literature. In October, we focused on the themes like Mental Health Awareness, Women...
Tales from the Himalayas is a collection of seventeen short tales set in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, published by Rupa publications. These stories, borrowed from Pradhan’s...
RAYA: Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara, written by author Srinivas Reddy, is the definitive biography of India’s first truly global leader and one of the greatest kings who changed...
Seema Mustafa’s ‘Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India’ Celebrates the Muslim Women-Led Nationwide Anti-CAA-NRC Protests The nationwide Muslim-women led protests against the notorious Citizenship (Amendment) Act...
In this episode of India Booked, journalist and children’s book writer Priyanka Pradhan takes us on a journey through the Himalayas by discussing stories from her book...
In this episode of India Booked, Ayushi Mona discusses with social activist, writer and editor Ishmeet Nagpal, an array of essential topics ranging from the upsurge in...
Mitra Phukan is a writer, translator, columnist and trained classical vocalist who lives in Guwahati, Assam. Her published works include four children’s books, a biography, two novels—The...
‘Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines’ is a rigorous investigation and a personalized narrative by Amandeep Sandhu about the matters of Panjab, an account on the recovery from...
Separate Journeys, the new collection of short stories edited by Geeta Dharmarajan, is earthy and raw in its exploration of womanhood in multiple forms – as mothers,...
Hemant Sharma handles the social-media at Katha Books. The pandemic has done very interesting things to the digital space. How did you capitalize on that? What was...
Translated from Urdu by Ravina Aggarwal Discovering Indian literature across the country giving a broad spectrum of stories known and unknown is one of my greatest joys...
The Man from Chinnamasta by Mamoni Raisom Goswami (popularly known as Indira Goswami) was published in 2005 in Assamese under the title “Chinnamastar Manuhto” and created a...
Charbak Dipta is a Senior Illustrator at Katha Books. To start with, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself, your creative process and how you...
Translated and Edited from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmstrom Mauni, the pen-name of S. Mani, is a pioneer in the short story scene of Tamil literature. With...
Writer, literary translator, book critic and a literary podcast (Desi Books) host herself, Jenny Bhatt speaks to Ayushi Mona how the themes of Dhumketu’s books resonated with...
World Television Day falls on November 21 every year and this time, we have chosen to highlight it by celebrating #AdaptationWeek on our social media. While adaptations...
‘Twilight in a Knotted World’ is the third novel by journalist and historian Siddhartha Sarma that uncovers the many layers of the Phansigar problem and a hierarchy...
Bhairavi– The Runaway, written by Shivani aka Gaura Pant, a pioneer of women’s fiction in India, is the story of a woman’s life, her resilience, her moral...
Uttarakhand is home to some of the most beautiful hills and mountain spaces in India. Rich in natural resources, this hilly state also has an equally rich...
Bhairavi by Shivani is about contradictions – the traditional and the modern, the contemporary and the past, and even the doer and the observer. A young woman...
‘Stoned, Shamed, Depressed’ is an alarming reality check of the struggles faced by the teens of India, dealing with the evident but deliberately denied issues of substance abuse, social...
Moustache, originally written in Malayalam as Meesha, by S. Hareesh translated by Jayasree Kalathil into English is an extremely well-written, multifaceted novel which redefines the concept of...
Neil D’Silva is a postgraduate in organic chemistry, ran a coaching class for 18 years while also freelancing and is now among the few horror writers in...
Kiran Manral debuted as a writer with The Reluctant Detective in 2011. She was earlier a feature writer for The Times of India and Cosmopolitan India. The...
“And then came a second scream, a howl of terrible anguish, rending the sky apart, tearing the cosmos, piercing my ears and penetrating my very marrow. It...
There is something so heartbreaking about the frailty of human lives and Neil D’Silva’s Yakshini weaves together a tragic tale of what happens when two intertwined destinies...
‘The ‘Other’ Shangri-La: Journeys through the Sino-Tibetan frontier in Sichuan’ is a narrative travelogue based on author Shivaji Das and his wife Yolanda’s journey which explores the...
The Jataka Tales are a voluminous body of literature native to India concerning the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. The Jatakas are amongst the earliest Buddhist literature,...
Blood is a short novel by Bengali novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay which was originally titled Rakta. The novel is all about how an old pre-Independence era photograph rekindles...
Shabnam Minwalla has worked as a journalist with the Times of India, and writes food columns, book reviews and features for various national publications. She has written many critically acclaimed titles...
In the 14th episode of India Booked, author Anukrti Upadhyay takes us through the deserts of Rajasthan and the hot springs of Japan through her novel Kintsugi....
The epics have been a major influence across communities and tribes in India. In the folk oral epics of Central India, especially in Chattisgarh and Western Odisha,...
Short Story Thursday is a weekly series dedicated to highlighting the short-stories from Indian literature. In August, we focused on the theme of #WomenInTranslation. First up on...
Malay Chatterjee has been a professor at Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture. Chatterjee’s many academic/non-fiction publications have covered complex issues concerning architectural conservation and heritage management....
Not all vessels are meant to hold water, some are for allowing water to seep away. Haruko trailed a finger over the photograph, “Broken things are precious...
Sowmya Vajjala is a translator, notably for her work ‘The Sharp Knife of Memory’ from Telugu to English and has translated “Our Films, Their films” by Satyajit...
Jahnavi Barua is an Indian writer based in Bangalore. Next Door (Penguin India, 2008), her debut collection of short stories was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International...
Undertow by Jahnavi Barua, a family saga spanning three generations, explores love, kinship ties with mother-daughter relationship at its fulcrum and loss – of identity/belonging against the...
For centuries, Rajasthan has been a gold mine of oral traditions and histories, with Padma Shri Vijaydan Detha being one of the foremost storytellers of all time....
unBlock, our meetup series to come together and write, just got a new avatar, and in keeping with #SpookySeason, it is horror-themed. In this, we are joined...
While reading, it is often wondered what a particular word will be written or pronounced as in a different language. Our idea is to promote and preserve...
Translated by J. Devika The Cock is the Culprit, written originally in Malayalam by Unni R (which sold 10,000 copies in the first 100 days after its...
Amrita Tripathi is a novelist, and collector of identities. She is passionate about gender rights and about raising awareness on mental health issues. She writes contemporary fiction — both her novels Broken...
Translated from Kannada by R. Ranganath Prasad Originally published as Anchu in Kannada by the legendary S.L. Bhyrappa, Brink is a love saga set in Mysore, a...
Bringing in the 12th episode of India Booked on a high note! Shantanu Datta, in his 30-year-long journalism career, has interviewed such global icons as Roger Waters (Pink...
Maithili Doshi is a graphic designer and has an experience of over a decade in the world of book-publishing. Apart from designing book covers at Speaking Tiger...
Easterine Kire was born in Kohima, Northeast India. She studied at the North East Hill University and received a doctoral degree in English Literature from the University...
Sky is my Father was originally published as A Naga Village Remembered, and recently reissued by Speaking Tiger books. The change in titles definitely changes expectations; I...
Sohan Koonar is a physiotherapist by training, a founder of a multi-clinic company and an inventor with international patents. He is the author of Paper Lions, published...
We’ve all read about history in school books: an endless repetition of dry facts and dates, of people with unpronounceable names and long-forgotten titles. Yet history is filled with...
Mitra Phukan’s collection of short stories, A Full Night’s Thievery, is about very flawed people – the kind we all are ourselves. They are disloyal, untruthful, vengeful...
Translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan Dr C.S. Lakshmi, who writes under the nom de plume of Ambai, has contributed to Indian literature in no small way. Her works...
Paper Lions, Sohan S. Koonar’s debut novel, spans across three different ages and shows a beautiful, inter-generational history of independence and partition. It looks at a set...
A prolific translator, the Books Editor at Scroll.in, and professor of creative writing and literary journalism; Arunava Sinha is one of India’s most important literary figures. In...
In this episode of India Booked, host Ayushi Mona speaks to Vikramjit Singh Rooprai, an educator, heritage activist and author. They discuss all things Indian heritage, especially...
During the lockdown period I got into reading autobiographies, as a distraction from my day job of teaching classical texts. While cleaning my bookshelf I found an...
In our latest episode, Ayushi Mona and bestselling author of such works as Sacred Games and Red Earth and Pouring Rain, Vikram Chandra, discuss his non-fiction debut,...
Translated from Kannada by A.K. Ramanujan Samskara, originally written in Kannada in 1965, sheds light on the caste system and ways of Brahmanism in a contemporary world....
It’s 11th Century CE, India is fragmented and tormented by invasions of Mahmud Ghazni. This is the point where the curtains open to Legend of Suheldev, not...
Words: ~1300 | Theme: Domestic Fiction The mop groaned on hearing her footsteps, and whispered to the broom, “Hai hai! She is here. Why can’t she follow...
In this eighth episode of India Booked, Ayushi Mona speaks to the stalwart academic and writer Ruth Vanita. They chat about her journey writing about the courtesans...
The Day Before Today: Lockdown Stories, as the name suggests, are stories filled with and about the trepidation that all of us will relate to – being...
Rahi Masoom Raza weaves Topi Shukla the way a dastango weaves their dastaan. It gently takes the reader by the hand into the world of Topi, Iffan, Sakeena...
‘Imagine a Horizon.’ ‘I can’t.’ A simple concept, aye? The furthest point the eye can see, where land, or sea, meets sky. Where the world turns away,...
Translated from Kosali by Surendra Nath Padmashree and Odia Sahitya Akademi award winning poet Dr. Haldhar Nag is popularly known as Lok Kabi, poet of common men,...
Noor Jahan, Lakshmibai, Jodh Bai, Rajia Sultana and Jahanara. What’s common between these historical figures besides the fact that they were all strong women of their times?...
Premalekhanam which means ‘love letter’, is a Malayalam novel written by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, fondly known as Beypore Sultan. The book is a short read which is...
As a co-host for Discovering India Readathon 2020, one of the prompts was to read books from minority authors. This included the Jewish community of our country,...
Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, is a charming if somewhat rambling tale of love and marriage. At over 1300 pages and 591,552 words, A Suitable Boy isn’t...
Essayist, short-story writer, and author of ‘House of Nails‘, and ‘Fire Girl’, Sayantani Dasgupta speaks to Ayushi Mona about her childhood experiences – from being an avid-reader...
Translated by Nandini Krishan Estuary (noun): the tidal mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the stream What attracted me towards Perumal Murugan’s latest, Estuary,...
Paul Melo e Castro is a British scholar and academic, known for his work on editing and translating, particularly Indo-Portuguese literature. His area of work is Lusophone literature, film and...
Translated by Sunandini Banerjee In 1993, Nabarun Bhattacharya published his magnum opus, Herbert (or Harbart), translated into English by Sunandini Banerjee in 2017 (this is the third...
Monsoon, Paul Melo e Castro’s English translation of Vimala Devi’s Moncao, is about divisions between human beings. Vimala Devi’s short story cycle was first published in 1963,...
When Purple Pencil Project asked me if I would review Breast Stories by Mahasweta Devi, I almost refused. What is there to say about Mahasweta Devi that...
In Bulletproof, journalist and author Teresa Rehman goes beyond statistics and looks at documentary evidences, and shows us how conflict impacts women, children, health etc. A first-of-its-kind...
Customs, words, culture, language are always in a state of translation; from one audience to another, from one story to another, from one medium to another. In...
Translated by Ranjita Biwas Assam’s struggle for identity and independence has always plagued the state; from the Assam Agitation in 1980s to the protests against NRC and...
Ranjita Biswas is a journalist, writer and translator of fiction from Assamese into English. She is currently based in Kolkata. She is the translator of Written in...
Translated by Arunava Sinha Background Dastan is an Urdu word that means ‘story’; and the poetic travesties of life and death are beautifully weaved with dexterity in...
In Truck De India!, journalist Rajat Ubhaykar embarks on a 10,000 km-long, 100% unplanned trip, hitchhiking with truckers all across India. On the way, he makes unexpected...
Over the last few years, there has been a resurgence of nationalist sentiment around the world, and especially in India. Fostering a national identity in a country...
The Partition was one of the most tragic and traumatic incidents in the history of the country. With large scale atrocities, crimes and brutality that forever defined...
Bad Money, Vivek Kaul’s latest works, is an important title for the way he discloses the history of the Indian Economy and Banking system, and discusses why...
Aanchal Malhotra is an Indian author and historian, best known for her work on oral history and material culture of the Partition of India in 1947. You must have started being around...
This epigraph to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth neatly ties up the collection of short stories, which views the idea of a home away from home (a hallmark...
Illustrations by Ayushi Rastogi As a child, I loved reading comics. Billu and Raman were my favorites, folllowed closely by Chacha Chowdhary and Pinki. Even as I...
Invisible Man, the seminal work (controversies and shortcomings included) talking about the Indian transmasculine network, is an important work for bringing the community’s voice to the fore....
Tishani Doshi’s Small Days and Nights is the latest addition to her much-admired oeuvre of poetry, dance and fiction. In this book, she spins the tale of...
“Contemporary Indian literature seems to be too focused on the human world, and seems to have forgotten the world outside it,” said Amitav Ghosh, at the book...
Stories oftentimes find their essence in the women who weave them, shaped and moulded by their experiences of love, loss, betrayal, triumph and hope. Magical Women, edited...
We at Purple Pencil Project keep you updated about the latest happenings in the literary world, both national and international, and aim to bring out literary news...
Girish Karnad was one of India’s most celebrated playwrights. Unapologetically outspoken, he often drew the ire of fundamentalists — making him one of the most controversial writers...
We at Purple Pencil Project keep you updated about the latest happenings in the literary world, both national and international, and aim to bring out literary news...
It’s the oldest trick in the book; taking mythology, using the central themes and characters and transporting them to real-life, to different times, to different battles. Mythological...
Picture this: A city with such poor air-quality that breathing is a struggle. A city with a relentless summer, with heat that makes you giddy if you...
We at Purple Pencil Project keep you updated about the latest happenings in the literary world, both national and international and aim to bring out literary news...
International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The Godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You...
Last week, we talked about Daura. Author Anukrti Upadhyay’s debut work of fiction, published by 4th Estate Books (an imprint of Harper Collins), comes with a companion...
The cover itself draws you in. A maroon background, a sand-yellow illustration of a tree (a kalpavriksh, perhaps), and the beautiful typeface, designed by The Typecraft Initiative add...
I began reading this novel skeptically, I admit. It seemed to be just another retelling of Jhansi Ki Rani, the warrior queen who splintered the barrier of...
To put it simply, The Outcasts by Lidija Stankovikj is one of the most intricate books in recent times. Stankovikj’s writing is almost dreamlike, the narrative fluid yet...
Riding on his fame from Flat Truck Bullies (FTB), Balaji Venkataramanan’s Pops! is a refreshing read for children and adults alike. We at Purple Pencil Project loved...
Always wanted to write? Study the classics? Understand culture? But don’t want to return to college? We feel you. The subjects in the humanities hold our endless...
My current opinion of Shashi Tharoor, that of him being more of a dilettante than a dignitary, is, of course, solely a lament of his once-astute gifts...
Deepak Unnikrishnan’s Temporary People is like a journal with a different pressed flower in every page, each distinctly fragrant and unique, and yet still cohesive with the...
Rich in traditions, natural beauty, and purity, life in the villages of India is rustic and fulfilling. Ki. Rajanarayanan’s Gopalla Gramam transports the reader to the serenity...
Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory; removed as they are from our mundane lives. They are our cheap thrills and guilty pleasures. Prisoner of Yakutsk by Shreyas...
Balaji Venkataramanan’s Pops has the most unassuming cover which disguises the humorous portrayal of a very real and a very common story today; divorce. When I first...
Transcending linguistic borders, advocating social reforms and providing entertainment: here is what New India’s bookshelf looked like Among the many memories of childhood, the most cherished are...
Purple Pencil Project, in collaboration with Red Sparrow kickstarted their events series, Filmi Keeda, that aims to bring the discussion around book and films, our two finest...
We live in a planet of over 7 billion people, spread across geographies. We are all told this; somewhere out there, there are seven people who look exactly...
Bombay Penned And Painted On An Epic Canvas Twenty years ago, I discovered, in my knee-high boyhood, that Bombay, as we had always known it by name,...
One of my most cherished memories of childhood is when we used to have our school exams. Everybody, I think, can relate to the nervously hurried and...
“Fiction is the lie which tells the truth” History has always held an inexplicable sway over the reader. The far off time and setting, the characters, the...
To Vishal Bhardwaj’s 7 Khoon Maaf The Oxford Dictionary defines femme fatale as a ‘very beautiful woman that men find sexually attractive but who brings them trouble...
A must-read classic of Bengali Literature The Context The one joy of curating a website that focuses on Indian literature is also the amazing literary gems, classics...
Looking for book-ish events in March? We looked around, and there is a little of everything happening, from conferences, plays based on literary characters, Event Name: Rumi...
It gives me extreme (and very nerdy) pleasure to announce a collaboration with The Red Sparrow, a content destination for Indian films. Starting March, Purple Pencil Project...
Goodish Farce That Could Have Been Great Satire Mr. Shashi Tharoor, where are you? Of course, I am aware that you still make headlines these days, albeit...
In December last year, we partnered with the Ethos Literary Festival, a two-day long celebration of the verse, which was presented by Hawakal Publishers, a poetry press...
After two days of compelling sessions, meaty discussions, revered speakers, impromptu musical performances and interactive workshops, The Hindu Lit for Life Festival 2019 entered into the third...
As the sun spread its warmth, dispelling the cold which has engulfed the early morning in Chennai, writers, novelists, performers, artists and literary enthusiasts swarmed inside Sir...
Some new names and some old, some popular choices and some critically-loved. 2018 was an exciting year for Indian literature, a time when the reading, writing and...
I grew up in Maharashtra. Throughout school, our Indian history syllabus was restricted to the North and the West. The South was represented by such names as...
English poetry in Kolkata found itself blooming frutifully in the 1950s, often called the ‘transitional decade’. Romantic poetry then was represented by Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu....
Right about the time I was finishing The Great Smog of India, I also read headlines such as: Delhi spends Christmas indoors as air quality severe on...
After a successful first day, the poets, their audience, and the critics once again gathered at Royal Banquets, Dumdum, Kolkata, to witness a day of engaging panel...
On a cold winter morning in Dum Dum, poets, professors, publishers and authors gathered for the first ever bilingual literary fest of Kolkata, Ethos Literary fest, organized...
Over the weekend, poet Manu S Kurup will be participating in the Ethos Literary Festival 2018, speaking at the session, ‘Do critiques add value to poetry at...
The Ethos Literary Festival 2018 takes place in Dum Dum, Kolkata, from December 22-23, 2018. From today, get to know your speakers better through our interview, as we...
On December 22-23, 2018, Dum Dum in Kolkata will play host to the the Ethos Literary Festival 2o18, organised by the Ethos Literary Journal and Hawakal Publishers....
“Isma was going to miss her flight. The ticket wouldn’t be refunded because the airline took no responsibility for passengers who arrived at the airport three hours...
For readers, writers, students and followers of all things literary and just everyone looking to engage with fellow enthusiasts of the written word – we looked around...
Interviewing a storyteller is like listening to a fable – it is filled with anecdotes, short stories from yore and a feeling that you are sitting by...
I was first introduced to author PJJ Antony when I was working as the executive editor at Leadstart Publications, editing his translated collection of short stories, Come,...
When you hear the word ‘story’ what comes to your mind? A picture book? An enchanted castle? A bonfire night with your friends, sharing ghost stories? Your...
On a bonfire night after a calamity that mostly scared and did not destroy, an elderly man sat next to me, and without provocation, began narrating the...
Mumbai is vast, with more people sailing into it than out. Chances are that two people, in separate corners of this near 3-hour wide city, have similar...
Author Tabish Khair’s Night of Happiness is a difficult tale to slot. It has elements of a thriller, a paranormal tale, and also makes reference to real-life...
At 275 pages, Neel Mukherjee’s A State Of Freedom seems like a short read. It is divided into five seemingly unconnected parts. The common thread that runs...
Speaking to Shubhangi Swarup, like reading her book, is to leave the parochial behind. It is to be inspired to live as fully and engagingly as possible,...
I Reading Beloved is like swinging really fast, really high. It is thrilling but is sometimes out of your control, sometimes reaching so high that you fear...
I am always looking to read more of literature in translation, which is why when the generous Vivek Tejuja gave me The Automobile Club of Egypt (2013)...
There is a point, particularly around late teenage, when you are curious to know about how the things are spectacularly different in other countries, other states and...
No matter which city you’re in, we’ve got your July weekends covered with these literary events. Event Name: Broke Bibliophiles – Bombay Chapter What’s it about?: A...
Diksha Bijlani is a spoken-word poet, Applied Psychology graduate from Gargi College and she has represented India in Chicago’s International Poetry Slam competition. She is also a...
Book your calendars this upcoming month for some of the fine literary events coming up in the cities. Event Name: Language Fest What’s it about?: A fest which...
The last week of May has got you covered with some upcoming literary events across the country. Event Name: BuddyBits Recite Whats it about? Amidst the rush...
Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl is about growing love for humans, the reluctant choices for a better future and the power of books. The characters open themselves and bloom...
Event Name: Dhaka Literature Festival Location: Top floor, House 66, Road 8, Block C, Niketan, Gulshan 1, Dhaka. Dates: November 16-18, 2017 Line-up: Ben Okri, Jerry Pinto,...
Event Name: TATA Literature Live! Location: National Centre for Performing Arts and Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai Dates: November 16 – 19, 2017 Line-up: Shashi Tharoor, Thomas Friedman, Ajit...
In a couple of hours from now, the National Novel Writing Month or the NaNoWriMo will begin in India. For a whole month, aspiring writers across the...
Pablo Neruda , that famed poet of love, has a lesser known collection titled ‘Ode to Common Things’. Here, he takes commonplace objects like onions or spectacles...
Maps for a Mortal Moon is a collection of journalistic writings by Adil Jussawalla on a sprawling range of subjects – from the importance of literary agents...
I think we’re beginning to remember that the first poets didn’t come out of a classroom, that poetry began when somebody walked off of a savannah or...
Literature today presents itself as that elusive, satisfying, cool profession. “You’re an author? That’s cool.” “I want to do something creative, like write,” have become cool catchphrases...
Think of Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House as a travelling theatre and a mobile culture library, situated primarily in the Macdougal-Sullivan Gardens Historic District or simply the...
I was vacationing with two of my brothers last week, corporate bigwigs who sashay down the airports every month, eat meals at the lounge and keep their...
Some books are known more by their quotes, snippets of awesome that become bigger than the author and the source, and find their immortality in facebook posts,...
There is something, not quite serendipity, about reading a book of contemporary relevance, with jingoistic headlines spamming my background, the noise of hyper news anchors rising above...
Sometime last year, I started painting again. Seeing my art teacher in his element, oblivious to all distraction, I wrote a short story about the lengths an...
Let one thing be known; most contemporary Indian fiction (in English) is a waste of paper. It is written in ‘simple’ English, as if literature is nothing...
If you haven’t read The God of Small Things yet, you may still have heard all about how the novel grabbed the 1997 Booker, while notoriously creating...
Imagine rich, creamy dark chocolate, with bits of walnut and a hint of mint, layered with caramel, whipped till ultra-smooth consistency is achieved and moulded to the...
When the back blurb of a book compares the New World of 1545 to the Yucatan Peninsula today, when there is magic and historical fiction involved, you...
This review was first published on June 30, 2016 Rupert Devereaux (let’s think, a Mr. David Cameron) is the Prime Minister of Britain, governing it with mediocre...
Three things I read this book while having a little professional tussle of my own and eerily, at the same time that John Mandrake suffers the professional...
Reading fantasy at 22 while pursuing a Master’s in Art — English Literature, is a test in itself. How you react to a largely ‘childish’ book after hammering for...
Here’s something about me: I love philosophy, and believe firmly that it needs to be made more mainstream. Philosophy helps root your beliefs into a concrete base....
I’ll be honest — I am not (yet) a science fiction aficionado. I have a very limited, can-count-on-my-fingers number of the genre, some short stories and currently only two...
Writers and authors, storytellers and what Neil Gaiman calls, ‘those trade in fictions’, I believe, have a hidden agenda to glorify, not unjustly, our own kind. We...
Last month, I acquired a membership to a library in Mumbai; an old, dilapidated building that has volumes and volumes of old books in English, Marathi, Hindi...
*claps hands* So, romance novels are a guilty pleasure of mine – they’re the perfect way to cleanse you palate after finishing book(s) that require my complete...
Romance sections at popular bookstores are smaller than Cinderella’s foot! I found this gem on the dusty shelf of a rent-a-book place after a long day of...
Greek mythology seems to rule the world. There are those who like it, and then there is the author of #FDD017, Rishika Aggarwal, who has reached its...
Hell Island is a novella that fits in between Scarecrow and Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (alternatively title, Scarecrow Returns) in Matthew Reilly’s Scarecrow series, filling...
Literally. The plot of The Great Zoo of China is pretty simple – China has secretly raised 200-odd dragons over the course of 3-4 decades, while also...
Welcome to the surrealist’s paradise! Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Strange Library’ is a quick read – clocking in at about 100 pages, half of which are artwork, even...
In the mundane rut that are our professional and domestic routines, the universe finds its way to reassure us that it’s got our backs; a shuffle that...
Around October last year I lay disturbed — dreaming of wars, death, of a dystopian future and my place in it. Source? The ongoing ‘conflict’ between India and Pakistan,...
You’ve probably seen the critically acclaimed movie now (if you haven’t, I’d recommend it as much as the book), but even if you have, that’s still no...
Isaac Asimov has been on my to-read list since forever. He’s one of those you like before reading, and my limited knowledge of the Foundation Saga weaved...
There’s a few words that will always go together: India, 90’s kids, reading, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Matilda, Harry Potter, Nancy Drew. These were great stories. Even...
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I just finished reading After the Crash by Michel Bussi. It’s a very simple and yet fascinating story. A place crashes in the mountains. Everyone aboard dies....
Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur. Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur. Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel...
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This week, we have Nitin Sawant. His book, Lucifer’s Lungi (Goodreads, Buy from Amazon, Buy from Flipkart). Nitin’s book is about this guy who believes in traveling to unknown...
I recently read Private India. The latest by Ashwin Sanghi and James Patterson. Got the book as part of the book review program by Blogadda.com. Private India....
