Sky is my Father by Easterine Kire
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 picked up Sky is my Father expecting folklore and myth, but was instead taken to 1800s Khonoma, in the Angami region of Nagaland, house of the Semo, Thevo, […]
In Conversation With: Sohan S. Koonar
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 by Speaking Tiger. You have mentioned you plotted and planned the novel over a year; what are the note-taking methods or apps you used to keep a track […]
Drunk Bird Chronicles by Malay Chatterjee
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 people who lived and breathed and moved in the background of wars and famines and empires. And it is these people who bring history alive, who lead the […]
A Full Night’s Thievery by Mitra Phukan
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 and not very nice; the nasties would make their nasty way through the world with no consequences. A darker Roald Dahl, if you will. A short story at a […]
A Night with a Black Spider by Ambai
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 largely focus on themes of feminism and the lives of everyday women that many other writings misrepresent. Translated from Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan, A Night with a Black Spider […]
Paper Lions by Sohan S. Koonar
Paper Lions, Sohan S. Koonar’s debut novel, spans three different ages and shows a beautiful, inter-generational history of independence and partition. It looks at a set of characters, their growth and development, against the backdrop of a finely detailed story of Punjab, at the cusp of being divided. Plot Points Paper Lions’ 400 pages are […]
Kolkata: A Literary Lens with Arunava Sinha
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 this episode of India Booked, Ayushi Mona and Sinha discuss Bengali literature and how he came to translation (part awareness, part accident, part design), the city of Calcutta […]
OnStepping into heritage with Vikramjit Singh Rooprai
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 ‘Baolis’, or stepwells in India, specifically of and around Delhi. Vikramjit shares the brilliance behind physics and other natural factors involved in creation of a Baoli, and what […]
Lone Fox Dancing by Ruskin Bond
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 autobiography, Citizen Delhi: My Times, My Life, and started reading the iconic figure Sheila Dixit, the former Chief Minister of Delhi and the series continues from Sanjay Manjrekar’s […]
Rhythmic words: A list of books about music
Music, like literature, can work magic. It can take you to places you didn’t know existed, it can uplift you and give you a glimpse of all that is beautiful and sublime. Books about music, then, bring twice the artistic punch to our imaginations. The list has been updated in celebration of our #WritingMusic week […]
