Chandana Dutta

Over the last two decades, Indian Writing in English translation has emerged as a flourishing field that has seen a steady rise in the translation of fiction and other forms of creative writing in almost all Indian languages. While there is much to cheer about, what is missing is the study of critical discourses and literary traditions in regional languages in translation. Additionally, with translated works from different Indian languages included in universities’ curricula and a favoured area of research in literary studies, the scarcity of critical material in translation is urgently felt.


Reviewed by: Mukul Chaturvedi
Upamanyu Chatterjee

Several years ago, Nilanjana S Roy had defined the current crop of Indian Writing in English novelists as a ‘Doon School-St. Stephens’ conspiracy’. It was an interesting but true observation since the writers who were popular at that time were all products of these elite institutions and were quite adept at imitating western culture and simultaneously wrote in a style that was quite polished and urban.


Reviewed by: Somdatta Mandal
Delshad Karanjia

In Teaching a Horse to Sing, Delshad Karanjia ventures on a journey of retelling ‘tales of uncommon sense’ from all around the world, a task that seems as fantastical as the title at first. To enter into this book of wit, wisdom, humour, and most of all, a deep appreciation for the art of storytelling, is to fall down a rabbit hole. Whimsical and fleeting alike, the stories collected in this book are a homage to popular tales that are both cultural and social, whispered across time and all over the world, in similar iterations, lending a universality that is tinged with the local every time a tale is read.


Reviewed by: Zahra Rizvi
Anuradha Roy

Anuradha Roy is one writer who always takes you by surprise. Each of her books has a story with an intensity that is rare. Each of her books is a joy to read. The Earth Spinner is one such tale. Indian women’s writing in English has successfully moved from the world of domesticity to the more complex world of emotions, ambitions, landscapes. A world that makes you think. A world that draws your attention to differences that determine, decipher, and help us deconstruct the existential discourse.


Reviewed by: Ranu Uniyal
Sarabjit Sen, Debkumar Mitra, Sekhar Mukherjee and Pinaki De

Four years after the publication of their first anthology of graphic narratives, Longform returns with this eagerly awaited second outing, with eighteen texts from India and abroad. This visually and textually provocative collection of stories breaks boundaries and exposes fault lines of the ‘invisible India’ and the world at large, with an unflinching honesty and empathy for all those who fall off the map or are erased from it.


Reviewed by: Anjana Neira Dev
Sonnet Mondal

Sonnet Mondal’s fifth collection of poetry, An Afternoon in My Mind, is a compelling portrayal of contemporary times, when personal grief merges with pandemic loss and loneliness. The book consumes readers and makes them believe that Mondal’s sorrow is their own. It is evident that the poems in this collection are written as a cathartic release, and hence they become an exercise for readers in collective healing.


Reviewed by: Shamayita Sen