By Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. Translated from the original Bangla by Prasun Roy Fingerprint

Prasun Roy’s translation keeps alive the uneasiness about the ghosts, whether they are antagonistic or friendly and generous, and their doings. But there are numerous sentences and phrases that sound grating to the ear. Tautological expressions like ‘a face soaked in emotional sympathy’ (p. 54), ‘was infamous for being uncannily notorious’ (p. 102), ‘immoral wickedness of this boy’ (p. 106), and ‘the forest was infamous for these notorious beasts’ (p. 128) could certainly have been altered to sharper and more cryptic, non-repetitive ways of saying them by the editor(s). Other hiccups that disrupted fluent reading included imprecise expressions like


Reviewed by: Nivedita Sen
By Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

The interplay between Anuradha, Vardhman and Nandini is central to this lyrical, melancholic novel and its complex exploration of love and life. Shanghvi’s prose is lush, poetic and enchanting in its use of imagery, painting vivid pictures in a story that resonates with the bittersweet music of life’s most enduring truths. The Last Song of Dusk does not offer any easy resolutions as it meditates on the fleeting nature of beauty and the inevitability of loss, told through the lives of characters who are as flawed as they are compelling.


Reviewed by: Ranjana Kaul
By Suresh Sundaresan

Within this circularity are trapped endless stories of the people Chandrakant comes into contact with, who teach him lessons in both life and music, and also of people he never meets, only hears about. The story moves back and forth in time, from Chote Ustad to Bade Ustad, Jaffar Ali Khan, and from there to his Ustad, Sajjad Hussain, who, in turn, had been a disciple of Ustad Muhammad Jafri, the originator of the Karachi Gharana.


Reviewed by: Rana Nayar
By Sudeep Chakravarti

To most Indians the grisly murder and its aftermath story may appear, given the preponderance of similar stories in contemporary times, as another run of the mill. But this is where Chakravarti intervenes to read an otherwise ‘routine’ crime in a most intellectually insightful and sensitive way. His novel analysis, most importantly, brings in the volatile urban political and spatial-temporal context of 1970s-80s Delhi to understand not only the specific crime committed against the Chopra teenagers but also reflects on, among others,


Reviewed by: Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
By Lakshmi Kannan Olive Turtle

The title story captures a tableaux moment when Bhagyalakshmi emerges. The baby elephant not only leaves its mahout out of breath but also splashes water on Pratibha, Sashi and Indira, who are on a trip without informing their families. The exuberance of the baby elephant matches the first taste of freedom by the young women. The story, ‘A for Apple’ highlights the longing of a young boy to taste the luscious apple that is printed in his textbook. When he does manage to steal some money, buys an apple and eats, it becomes a moment of disappointment. In an act of repentance, he buys flavour-rich guavas to share with his family.


Reviewed by: V. Bharathi Harishankar
By Shahnaz Habib

Habib’s anecdote about her trip to Paris with her partner and the insurmountable barriers encountered by her will certainly hit home to residents of a Third World country! The anxiety to ensure that her travel comes through by the end of the chapter will meanwhile compel the reader to encounter a degree of racial discrimination that the travel industry rests upon. And so, through a series of examples


Reviewed by: Suman Bhagchandani