Fiction

This is a poignant, compelling and unflinching depiction of the powerful yet delicate bond between a mother and her daughters. Through the Open Window follows the lives of three independent women—Jannat Kaur and her daughters, Mahira and Tamannah—who lead life on their own terms. The story is as much about love and longing as it is about three women, who are able to look at their mistakes honestly, even if the realization happens later. The novel goes back and forth in time and looks at how Jannat came to be where she is today—a managing partner in a leading company, with twin daughters in college. The strand of the past starts during Jannats college days, with her getting pregnant and then rejected by her then-boyfriend. From the worries of becoming a single mother, to falling in love again with a man who accepts her daughters as his own, her life is shattered yet again and she is forced to raise the twins on her own. Tamannah and Mahira have to deal with their own share of complex and sometimes emotionally wrenching situations. For Tamannah its the men in her life (much like her mother) and for Mahira it is the everyday fight for her sense of self and her battle to emerge out of the shadow of two fiercely assertive and headstrong female influences shes had all her life. Through the Open Window is a depiction of how love can create, destroy and recreate.

A story of greed, love and sacrifice narrated in the backdrop of a crippling human tragedy. Acclaimed author Atulya Misra tells a gripping and powerful story that traverses numerous cultures and geographies. The story follows the life of Neha, who, at first, is driven by blind ambition. The heights she achieves in business dissipate once she starts spiralling in the opposite direction. Just when she appears to be an abysmal failure in the eyes of everyone, Neha creates a corporation to counter the biggest threat to the planet—the human propensity to consume endlessly and create more and more waste. Her enterprise becomes so large and successful that it becomes a danger to the very people who created it. Humanity has been a parasite for long enough on this planet. Its time we become vultures and clean up our habitat.

India is both an ancient culture and a young society, with all the benefits and burdens of a long history. Despite belonging to an extremely diverse range of castes, tribes, classes, and religions, Indians are bound by a sense of shared reality, of collective experience. We are all part of a greater whole—an intricate network of thoughts and ideas that has acquired a high level of cohesiveness in a world permeated by information technology.

Mmhonlumo Kikon’s poems isolate and examine the unchanging nature of space and time, the past and the present, the here and now. He takes a penetrating look at the banalities of daily life that actually shape and define the contours of identity, both within communities and outside.

Kikon’s poems identify the constructs of the modern world that seek to replace the indigenous. He explores the process of self-preservation employed by tribes against the onslaught of material and ideational forces. From the habits of culture to the distinct quandary that communities have to face; from the struggle to come to terms with the evolving world to the rush to educate the so-called ‘savage’; and from abandoning the ruins of colonialism to taking a measured approach to change, this collection is an intimate and brave review of lives lived in the wide expanse of nature and their interactions with the outside world.

This is a searing portrayal of the innate and native desire to revive a cultural ethos that has been drowning in a vortex of complex and systemic institutions.

With his trademark wit and unique narrative style, journalist Saket Suman delivers an illuminating account of modern India, tracing the consolidation, evolution and contestation of patriotism from the first war of independence to the pandemic. This is a reporters chronicle spanning three generations, backed by first-hand accounts of luminaries, peppered with numerous anecdotes and a passionate examination of his own beliefs. It is as scathing in its takedown of bigotry as it is lucid in charting a blow-by-blow account of our recent past. It is as much a tribute to the making of India and its founding fathers as it is the affirmation of the will of the Indians to place the power in the hands of the people. The Psychology of a Patriot is a rare book, meant to be read with delicate attention. At its heart, it is a gripping story—the story of how we become us and why our bond must be cherished.

"A fully imagined world: propulsive, prophetic, dizzying" - Jeet Thayil, author of Names of the Women "An astonishing debut. An amazing imagination" - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of The Last Queen "A masterwork-a book that is three great novels in one" - Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs In an Indian village in the 1950s, a precocious child is born into a family of Dalit coconut farmers. King Rao will grow up to be the most accomplished tech CEO in the world and, eventually, the leader of a global, corporate-led government. In a future in which the world is run by the Board of Corporations, King's daughter, Athena, reckons with his legacy-literally, for he has given her access to his memories, among other questionable gifts. With climate change raging, Athena has come to believe that saving the planet and its Shareholders will require a radical act of communion - and so she sets out to tell the truth to the world's Shareholders, in entrancing sensory detail, about King's childhood on a South Indian coconut plantation; his migration to the U.S. to study engineering in a world transformed by globalization; his marriage to the ambitious artist with whom he changed the world; and, ultimately, his invention, under self-exile, of the most ambitious creation of his life - Athena herself. The Immortal King Rao is a resonant debut novel obliterating the boundaries between literary and speculative fiction, the historic and the dystopian, confronting how we arrived at the age of technological capitalism and where our actions might take us next. About the Author Vauhini Vara has worked as a Wall StreetJournal technology reporter and as the business editor for The New Yorker.Her fiction has been honored by the O. Henry Prize and the Rona JaffeFoundation. From a Dalit background, she lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

High in the Western Ghats in northern Kerala is a land of mist and mystery, of forests and folklore, rich with the culture of its indigenous people, the Adivasis. Its old name was Bayalnad – land of the paddy fields – but it would come to be known as Wayanad.

Its resources attracted outsiders – traders, colonialists, migrants from the lowlands, and eventually, the timber and tourist industries. Exploitation of the forest led to the exploitation and enslavement of its people, and as the forest dwindled, so did the Adivasis’ culture, their way of life, even their language. But these were not changes quietly and willingly accepted; Wayanad became a key centre of direct action and uprising, and a stronghold for the Naxalite movement.

Spanning the time between the 1970s and the present, Valli is a tale of four generations who made this land their home. It is told through a diary that Susan – the daughter of two teachers, Thommichan and Sara, who eloped to Wayanad so that they could live together – leaves for her own daughter, Tessa.

And in telling their story, Valli tells us stories of the land and its people, of interdependence and abuse, repression and resistance, despair and contentment – stories as vast and magical as the forest itself once was.

When unspeakable tragedy befalls Bhubonmoni, a young widow, she must leave her village along with her brother, Krishnoshundor, and his family. Ensnared by the wily entrepreneur Nobokishore Dutta, they end up in an overcrowded depot near a port, soon to be packed into a ship sailing to Surinam, where they will be sold as sugarcane plantation slaves. But Fate has other plans. Bhubonmoni finds herself being led away from the port and her family to be stowed away in a secret location in Calcutta. Not too far away, a young rebel Shourendro is swept up by the ideas of the Brahmo Samaj. Meanwhile in Metiabruz, a shy musician Chondronath impresses the exiled Nawab of Lucknow with his art. None of them know it yet, but the stars are aligning despite overwhelming odds for them to meet under curious circumstances…Set against the vibrant background of late nineteenth-century Bengal, Debarati Mukhopadhyay’s beautifully woven novel brings together the glory and the decadence of colonial times. Fast-paced and thrilling, with a lively cast of characters including historical figures such as Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, Rabindranath Tagore, and Dr Kadambini Ganguly, Chronicles of the Lost Daughters is an unforgettable saga

A new story from internationally renowned author Amitav Ghosh, The Living Mountain is a cautionary tale of how we have systematically exploited nature, leading to an environmental collapse.

Recounted as a dream, this is a fable about Mahaparbat, the Living Mountain; the indigenous valley dwellers who live and prosper in its shelter; the assault on the mountain for commercial benefit by the Anthropoi, humans whose sole aim is to reap the bounty of nature; and the disaster that unfolds as a result.

The Living Mountain is especially relevant today when we have been battling a pandemic and are facing a climate catastrophe: both of which are products of our insufficient understanding of mankind’s relationship with nature, and our sustained appropriation and abuse of natural resources. This is a book of our times, for our times, and it will resonate strongly with readers of all ages.