Nayantara Sahgal
Two great novels I have admired this year are: Jasoda by Kiran Nagarkar, and I Have Become The Tide by Githa Hariharan. Nagarkar tells a story of the sordid uses of power in our feudal society, the living hell it makes for the poor and powerless, and how the human spirit rises above it. It has the gut-wrenching impact of all his fiction. You come away shaken and shocked. And so with Hariharan’s no-holds-barred novel, which describes what happens to those in our society who are condemned as untouchable but dare to dream of equality. A great non-fiction work I have read is The Free Voice by Ravish Kumar, writer, journalist, and TV anchor, whose book subtitled On Democracy, Culture And the Nation should be required reading for every Indian. This collection of his reaction to the political and social climate in India today, translated from the original Hindi, reveals a sensitive human being, deeply engaged with the times we are living in, and determined to speak out against injustice and horror, no matter what the cost.
What all three works have in common is the integrity of their writing and their writers.
Jayanth Kaikini
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Patniyaru Kandante Prasiddharu by B S Venkatalakshmi - Maharashtrada Kannada Shaasanagala Sanskrithika Mahathva by Dr G N Upaadhya
- Dashaavathaara - Yakshagana Kalavida Maragodu Raam Hegde Athmakathe
- Diddi - My Mother’s Voice by Ira Pandey
- Stars From Another Sky — The Bombay film world in the 1940s by Saadat Hasan Manto
Aatish Taseer
The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard
The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine
Rebel Sultans by Manu S Pilla
Proust’s Duchess by Caroline Weber
We That Are Young by Preti Taneja
Shashi Deshpande
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K Massie
The Perfect Spy by John le Carre
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
Raghu Karnad
Ants Among Elephants by Sujatha Gidla
Brothers of the Gun by Molly Crabapple and Marwan Hisham
Goat Days by Benyamin
Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
Indira Gandhi: Tryst With Power by Nayantara Sahgal
Vivek Shanbhag
Dark Circles by Udayan Mukherjee
The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray by Jorge Amado
Meenupeteya Thiruvu: A collection of Kannada poems by Renuka Ramanand
Mallige Hoovina Sakha: A collection of Kannada stories by T S Goravara
There is Gunpowder in the Air: Bangla Original by Manoranjan Byapari; translated by Arunava Sinha
Anita Nair
Seasons of the Palm by Perumal Murugan
From A to X (A story in letters) by John Berger
In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin
The Colour by Rose Tremain
Offer Him All Things: Charred, Burned & Cindered by Kala Krishnan Ramesh
Sharanya Manivannan
The Elephant In The Room (anthology)
Diwali in Muzaffarnagar by Tanuj Solanki
Offer Him All Things... by Kala Krishnan Ramesh
Cyber Sexy by Richa Kaul Padte
Eating Wasps by Anita Nair