N. Prabhakaran. Translated from the original Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil

Words are like human beings. Behind every living word there are many dead words.’Theeyoor Chronicles  deals primarily with the resilience of human beings in different situations to a certain extent and those who seek refuge in death when they are unable to do so…


Reviewed by: Jayashankar Menon
Sethu. Translated from the original Malayalam by the author

Kadambari: The Flower Girl  by Sethu is a work that surprised me on two primary counts. The first is that it is a self-translation, perhaps Sethu’s first attempt. It was originally published in Malayalam as Aaramathe Penkutty (2006). Self-translations are rarely attempted in Malayalam…


Reviewed by: Fathima EV
T. Padmanabhan. Translated from the original Malayalam by Sreedevi K. Nair & Laila Alex

The last couple of years have seen a quantum leap in terms of the sheer number and range of books being translated from Indian regional languages into English. While there has been a healthy market for bhasha translations of English works, the process


Reviewed by: Sonya J Nair
Himansu S. Mohapatra and Paul St Pierre

Letters to Jorina is a collection of eleven letters written by Alok Das, a University Professor from Odisha, to his woman friend Jorina McCarthy, a Guyanese settled in England. The book records Alok’s observations and reflections on home and abroad…


Reviewed by: Snehaprava Das
Veena Das

This is one of those books that puts a reviewer in a dilemma. It is so promi­sing in its design and intent that one is tempted to characterize it as a near clas­sic, but in its execution it leaves one dissatisfied. Of course, to say this is not to criticize the book, but merely to sug­gest the level that the book could have attained…


Reviewed by: Imtiaz Ahmad
Robert O’Neill

Writers are not known to have taken to Pills, not yet. In any case, since males dominate the world of writing, prolife­ration of books cannot be stopped by any known oral contraceptives. Prolife­ration of books is certainly better than proliferation of weapons and conflicts. All books are not as stale as airlines food…


Reviewed by: Bhabani Sen Gupta