A State Of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee

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 through them is the protagonists. We meet them all in the first two parts but their stories unravel bit by bit through the book. Mukherjee comes across as […]

All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

A compass among rows of paints. The cover of All the Lives We Never Lived is enough to draw you in even without its blurb that promises to be ‘a parable of our times’, whose ‘scale is matched by its power’. It’s scale is vast, but its power, not so much. The story begins with […]

Fiction begins where non-fiction ends: Shubhangi Swarup

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, to push the boundaries of experiences and consciousness. In this interview for onWriting.in, she talks about life during, before and after Latitudes of Longing, the need for novelists […]

Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup

  First, there was the beginning of the universe, with two atoms and emptiness. Then, there was the ocean, and a simple dream of a grain of sand created land as we know it. Perhaps in the future, there will be emptiness again, and the universe will end, or be born anew, with two lovers […]

On reading history: City of My Heart by Rana Safvi

This is not a book review. Who am I to judge the past, or what was written of it? I was introduced to monarchy in reverse. First, the death of Princess Diana. Then, the British empire and its Indian occupation. Then, the many emperors and kings who ruled different parts of the sub-continent. Then, when […]

Beloved by Toni Morrison

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 slipping away for a few seconds, and eventually, in the end, you’re back in control, and smoothly ending your ride. It starts powerfully with dedication. “To sixty million […]