Series: The India List

In Japan, there is a legend that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will have their wishes realised. But folding cranes, and the meditative, solemn care that it involves, has come to mean more than just an exercise in wish-making. Origami cranes have become a symbol of renewal, atonement, and warning. Their symbolism may have emerged out of Japan’s...

A hilarious and absurdist take on the political landscape of West Bengal, India. Beggar's Bedlam is a surreal novel that unleashes the chaos of the carnival on the familiar. Part literary descendant of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and part a reconstruction of lost Bengali history, Nabarun Bhattacharya's masterpiece is a jubilant, fizzing wire of subaltern anarchy and insurrection. Marshall...

A fast-paced and action-packed dystopian novel, addressing the nature of power, the limits of rationality, and the dominance of fear. In a world on the brink of totalitarian rule, one man rises from the shadows to ignite a revolution and becomes the unlikely leader of a war of resistance that will shake the very foundations of power. General Firebrand, an...

A collection of inventive and surprising short stories from one of India’s most prominent countercultural writers. In this wildly inventive collection of Nabarun Bhattacharya’s stories, we meet characters such as a trigger-happy cop in an authoritarian police state, a man who holds on to a piece of rope from a deadly noose, a retired revolutionary thrilled by delusions of grandeur,...

A brief, evocative memoir from one of India’s greatest writers. “Like a dazzling feather that has fluttered down from some unknown place... How long will the feather keep its colours, waiting? The ‘feather’ stands for memories of childhood. Memories don’t wait.” In Our Santiniketan, the late Mahasweta Devi, one of India’s most celebrated writers, vividly narrates her days as a...

An overview of nationalism and its impact on the study of history from one of India's most prominent historians. In this timely book, historian Romila Thapar delves into the complex world of nationalism and its impact on the interpretations of the past and on the discipline of history itself. History, she expounds, is no mere collection of information and chronology,...

Set in the underbelly of Calcutta, a story that reimagines a city's relationship with its abandoned animals, interlacing dark humour and political critique into a fable of resistance. A city on edge and a reckoning long overdue—Dog Star is a searing fable of vengeance and the limits of human empathy. Nabarun Bhattacharya's novella unfolds in Calcutta, where the city's dogs,...

A tense sociopolitical novel exploring power, violence, and morality in 1970s India. The Murderer’s Mother takes readers to the late 1970s in the Indian state of West Bengal, where the Communist Party–led Left Front has just been voted into power. It tells the story of Tapan, who has been installed as a gang leader by the most powerful man in...

From one of India's best-known artists, an inspired exploration of China's cities and small towns and villages, highlighting landscapes and everyday life. In 1985, K. G. Subramanyan visited China on an invitation from the China Artists Association, exploring Beijing, the Dunhuang caves, Xinjiang, Shaanxi, and Guangdong. Rather than its old monuments and new cities, what caught his eye were China's...

A river that once carried gold now bears the weight of memory and the struggles of those who call its banks home. The Subarnarekha River shimmers with legend; once said to carry flecks of gold, it remains a source of both promise and hardship for those who live along its banks. In Gold Sand, Gold Water, Nalini Bera conjures a...

When civility is just a mask, what happens when it slips? This collection of gripping stories pries open the cracks in urban life, revealing the chaos and cruelty beneath. Home in the Dark peels back the polished surface of middle-class life to expose the shadows lurking underneath: violence, betrayal, and the unsettling truths we refuse to see. In these fifteen...

A poetic journey through five decades of Karnataka's history, this collection brings K. S. Nisar Ahmed's timeless verses to a new audience. K. S. Nisar Ahmed captured the soul of Karnataka and the pulse of everyday life in verses that are as provocative as they are deeply lyrical. Every Day a Celebration gathers some of his finest poems, spanning over...

Aakriti Kuntal wields language like a blade and a balm, carving out poetry that is urgent and unafraid to ask what it means to exist. What does it mean to exist within language—to shape it, and in turn, to be shaped by it? In Night breaks apart, like pomegranate seeds in my palm, Aakriti Kuntal crafts poems that unravel at...

Reflections on the chords and discords inherent in the relationship between tradition and modernism. Written between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s, the articles and lectures collected in Moving Focus reflect on some of the major concerns of the practising artist and scholar of modern Indian art: tradition and modernism, the question of the image, and the use of art...

A tale of mercenaries and myths, set amid the political turmoil of Bengal. In the largely undocumented sphere of political violence in eastern India, Qadir the Spider is a mythological killer and casanova, known for the various assassinations and liaisons he carries out across the region. His oldest son Rahim is the latest entry to the field. A 13-year-old killer,...

An exploration of the weight of history and the demand for originality on the contemporary artist, written by one of India's best-known artists. What conception does a modern artist or critic have of contemporary art activity? How do modern artists react to their environment and cultural inheritance? And what general norms of achievement can we think of in the highly...

Now in paperback, Benyamin's wry and tender telling transforms the strange and bitter comedy of Najeeb’s life in the desert into a universal tale of loneliness and alienation. In the southern Indian state of Kerala, Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in a Persian Gulf country and earn enough money to send some back home. One day, he finally achieves...

What happens when a passage from the world of light to the world of darkness opens onto a new chapter of life? A retrospective account of a pioneering Indian artist who continued to paint after losing his eyesight. Benode Behari Mukherjee (1904-1980) was one of the most influential and highly regarded artists in the history of modern Indian art. Chitrakar...

A fascinating exchange between two giants of Indian cinema, revealing the inner workings of Satyajit Ray’s creative process and the vision that shaped world cinema. Two of Indian cinema’s most acclaimed auteurs, Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal, come together in this intimate dialogue, offering a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a cinematic genius. Based on Benegal’s 1985 documentary on...

Step into the fireside glow of a Himalayan village, where the supernatural feels ordinary and every story is a spell waiting to be cast. The Lama Who Flew invites readers into the enchanting world of a small Himalayan village in Arunachal Pradesh, where the past lingers in every rustling leaf and the supernatural feels as close as the wind against...

A fierce and witty portrait of an unravelling nation. Salt and Pepper is a collection of literary columns that defy convention—acerbic, tender, and unrelenting in their gaze. Written between the margins of news and national spectacle, these pieces are not topical commentary but something far more enduring: political satire that reads like poetry, reportage that mutates into parable, lament, and...