The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told : Ed. by Poonam Saxena

The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told

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 ranging from Premchand, Mannu Bhandari to Uday Prakash, Sara Rai. Covering a range of subjects, the common themes across the stories include inequality, partition and its aftermath, modernity […]

Life in a Gujarati village, the eyes of a little girl

Fence

Fence by Ila Arab Mehta translated from Gujarati by Rita Kothari follows the journey of Fateema Lokhandwala from her formative years as the daughter of a scrap metal seller (hence the surname) to her role as a professor. Plot points Most of Fence is about Fateema, a young Muslim girl in a small village in […]

Chakori by Chandrasekhar Kambar

Chakori

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 example of what can be achieved with a good mix of mythology and fantasy fiction. Engulfed with folklore and local myths from North Karnataka, Chakori gives us a […]

Yajnaseni: The Story of Draupadi by Pratibha Ray

Yajnaseni

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 narrated and watched on screen- Draupadi, Yajnaseni , Panchali or Krishnaa – no matter what you called her, Draupadi’s story right from her birth to swayamvara to a […]

Forsaking Paradise by Abdul Ghani Sheikh

Forsaking Paradise

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 as a reader. Ladakhi literature, an unexplored territory, brought forward by Katha introduces us to the region’s history and culture Translated from Urdu by Ravina Aggarwal, Forsaking Paradise […]

Year of the Weeds by Siddharth Sarma

Year of the Weeds

Year of the Weeds by Siddhartha Sarma is a stunning read guaranteed to keep you on the edge with its smooth pace and simple narration, and promises many chuckles, tears and the feeling of hope, all amalgamated into one. Touted as a YA fiction, it is a must read for the young and adults alike […]

Book of Rachel by Esther David

Book of Rachel

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, a drop in the ocean by numbers.  The only prominent Jewish author that I had heard of was Nissim Ezekiel thanks to his poem ‘The night of the […]

Havan by Mallikarjun Hiremath

havan book review

Each summer vacation , Lakshmi would  visit our home. A traveller, a banjara probably a lambani she would sing folk songs referring to some God or talking of the general ‘samasye'(issues) her community , her family faced. Laced with love, pain and strumming an instrument similar to harmonium she would sing. Searching my hazy memory […]