It was after disappointing night at the theatre that Mahsuda Snaith turned her hand to playwriting. The evening left her feeling somewhat disillusioned about what makes good theatre. A seasoned novelist and short story writer, Snaith had attempted writing plays before, but found they didn’t always work. ‘I liked the premise of the play that night,’ …
Deepti Kapoor
Q. Your novel, A Bad Character took me in as soon as I read the first page. I couldn’t stop reading. Where did the protagonist, Idha’s, voice come from? It’s hard to say with any certainty. At first I was going to say: I don’t know, because it happened that I had a year where …
2015 Fiction Highlights
If you thought 2014 was a great year for fiction, check out these titles out in 2015.
The Fifth Man by Bani Basu, translated by Arunava Sinha
reviewed by Divya Dubey Bani Basu is one of the most prolific writers in Bengal and a recipient of the Tarashankar Award forAntarghaat (Treason), and the Ananda Purashkar forMaitreya Jataka. She has also received the Sushila Devi Birla Award and the Sahitya Setu Puraskar. It is a pity that her work has not been more widely translated. …
The Asian Reader
by Adrienne Loftus Parkins After a many years of living in India, Singapore and China, I feel in a way like I ‘grew up’ reading books by Asian authors. I read a lot of books with Asian themes; I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, first for fun, then as part …
My top picks for 2015
by Adrienne Loftus Parkins This is shaping up to be a big year for Asian literature with new books from big name authors Rushdie, Ishiguro and Ghosh publishing new novels and volume of poetry coming from Vikram Seth. But what about the rest? Here are my top 3 picks for the year. Sandip Roy has already …
Iqbal: The Life of a Poet, Philosopher and Politician by Zafar Anjum
reviewed by Nigel Collett Two poets bestrode the cultural life of the Hindu and Muslim communities of India before Partition: for the Hindus, Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali sage; for the Muslims, Allama Sir Muhammad Iqbal, a Punjabi Muslim of Kashmiri descent. Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature, was knighted (though he returned his knighthood …
The Golden Pigeon by Shahid Siddiqui
reviewed by Divya Dubey The Golden Pigeon, Shahid Siddiqui’s debut work of fiction, is best described not so much as a historical novel but as a historical fantasy. Using the contradictions faced by Muslims in post-Partition India as the foundation of his story, the author has layered in elements of magic realism: his is a …
Lahiri wins DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015
Indian writers score hat trick win for $50k prize The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 has been awarded to Jhumpa Lahiri for her novel, The Lowland at this year’s ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival. Jury chair Keki N. Daruwalla said, “The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri is a superb novel written in restrained prose with moments of …
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Kalki is a wild, exciting, mysterious , 15 year old girl. She is also, possibly, the 10th incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. But now she has gone missing and her two best friends – who had not met her until she appeared a week ago – must try and explain to the police exactly …