Abdus Samad

The Journey of a Burning Boat is a work of fiction which sweeps its reader deep into the unrelentingly brutal, inhuman, world of the flesh trade. A subterranean world whose existence everyone is aware of and which manifests itself often in newspaper headlines, only to be forgotten or pushed to the peripheries…


Reviewed by: Ranjana Kaul
Richard Adams

Curious Lives is a collection of five ‘moralistic adventures’, previously and separately published, set in the world of virtuous ferrets. The cover of the book has a pair of bright yellow eyes gleaming from behind dense foliage. It is just the eyes that can be made out and it is just as well. The internet informs…


Reviewed by: R. Natraj
Jugal Mody
TOKE
2012

Toke means puffing a pipe or pot filled with marijuana. And true to its title, you get high with the novel’s surreal plot. The story is set in motion as you are introduced to Nikhil the protagonist who is fighting to come out of ganja-induced hallucinatory dreams. He is a regular guy with a regular job and suffers from regular bouts of insecurity…


Reviewed by: Abdullah Khan
Arjun Rao

Nirvan Shrivatsava steps into Shore Mount, a posh residential school, with the weight of his lineage on his young shoulders. Three generations of Shrivatsavas, including his parents and older brother, have been stars at the same school and Nirvan is uneasy with his legacy. Third Best is a coming of age novel that traces Nirvan’s life from Class VII to Class XII—from being a bullied junior to a respected senior…


Reviewed by: Sowmya Rajendran
Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar

The moment I read ‘Arun, Barun, Kironmala’, ‘Sukhu and Dukhu’ and ‘Saat Bhai Champa’ I had regressed to being a wide eyed seven year old listening breathlessly to my maternal grandmother, my Didima, weaving her magic around a Bengali rupkatha. She knew every story of Dakshinaranjan’s Thakurmar Jhuli…


Reviewed by: Subhadra Sen Gupta