By Hari Kunzru

Centred here, the story moves backwards and forwards to London and New York, and to a few places in Europe and India. It is the time of the pandemic.
Other than those who dominate the writer’s visual canvas, there are characters in the background and the foreground. Each is drawn with a master’s spare, sure touch. But those who rule the canvas are rendered with a magical mix of lucidity and inscrutability. We never know anyone enough,


Reviewed by: Rajesh Sharma
By Arundhati Roy

What follows is neither a saintly portrait nor a sentimental tribute, but a steady, unsparing account of a woman too forceful to be idealized. At the same time, the memoir reads unambiguously as a record of what Roy has made of her life—of the success, security, and meaning she has accumulated along the way. She animates a private archive she has long mined in fiction, now approached with the directness and vulnerability of memoir


Reviewed by: Amandeep Kaur
By Inez Baranay

India are used by the author to periodically punctuate the text and convey Halide’s impressions in her own words. In fact, the title itself borrows from Halide’s description of her feelings for India. On the other hand are the three girls: Zoya, making her way from doodling to creating ‘national’ art, Nuran, scholarly and contemplating marriage, and Aisha, who sees herself as a ‘modern’ woman aiming to become a lawyer.


Reviewed by: Asma Rasheed
By Paul Waters

While Sister Agatha is a forceful, pragmatic personality, whose ‘outsider’ tag becomes useful, especially in getting access to certain spaces, where her ‘foreigner’ tag and skin colour open doors that may be closed to ordinary Indians. Avtar is the essential counterpoint to Agatha. He is rooted in the history and complexity of Old Delhi, and his own personal experience with displacement allows him to empathize with the missing Pakistani pilgrim. Together this unlikely duo of detective and assistant get caught up in non-stop adventure, starting with a robbery they witness just outside the hotel,


Reviewed by: Madhumita Chakraborty
By Abha Iyengar

Iyengar’s women, in particular, stand out. They refuse to remain confined by the roles assigned to them; they are flawed, capable, contradictory, vulnerable, and intensely alive. Though their lives are shaped by limits and pressure, their choices—often brave,


Reviewed by: Malati Mukherjee
By Salil Desai

The why of the crime becomes more important. However, these sections often err on the side of over-articulation. Motivations are explained and justified at length. In seeking to make the psychology legible, the narrative occasionally flattens it. The repetition of grievance, resentment and self-pity risks turning complexity into monotony.


Reviewed by: Parvin Sultana