By Usha Priyamvada. Translated from the original Hindi by Daisy Rockwell

Originally published as Rukogi Nahi, Radhika?in 1967, Usha Priyamvada’s slim novel is translated by the Booker Award-winning translator


Reviewed by: Nishat Zaidi
By Manoj Rupda. Translated from the original Hindi by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Caught in an unfamiliar area, the elephant is attacked and killed by a pack of wild dogs. As the terror-stricken boy witnesses the silent death and devouring of the giant animal, something inside him also dies.


Reviewed by: Parvin Sultana
Translated from the original Bengali by Tony K. Stewart

The stories of miracle-working Sufi saints (pirs) have circulated in the Bangla-speaking world for most of the past millennium. They are romances filled with wondrous marvels, where tigers talk, rocks float and waters part, and faeries carry a sleeping Sufi holy man into the bedroom of a Hindu princess with whom the god of fate, Bidhata, has ordained his marriage.


Reviewed by: Somdatta Mandal
By Dipti Ranjan Pattanaik. Translated from the original Odia by Himansu S. Mohapatra

A series of standalone stories featuring a precocious young boy from provincial Odisha, Pattanaik’s The Life and Times of Banka Harichandan delicately maps the contours of growing up. The bookis not children’s literature per se.


Reviewed by: Satabhisa Nayak
Edited by Ki. Rajanarayanan. Translated from the original Tamil with commentary by Padma Narayanan

The book opens with the title story ‘Along with the Sun’ by SA Tamilselvan, the sad-yet-sweet story of Mari who dreams of marrying her uncle according to the custom of her caste.


Reviewed by: Malini Seshadri