By Arati Kumar-Rao

Kumar-Rao skilfully offers readers a deep and thorough understanding of the fragile landscapes using extensive investigative journalism and vivid descriptions of challenging circumstances.


Reviewed by: Mir Wafa Rasheeq
By Upamanyu Chatterjee

The richly textured sections on semi-urban and rural Bangladesh are remarkable for visual details. Imagine this: A ‘gora’ missionary holding a bundle of dirty clothes is lowering himself gingerly into a scum-covered pukur to wash himself and his garments. The steps are broken and slippery and a large, cheering audience of locals is shouting instructions! Here is another


Reviewed by: Malashri Lal
By Rajinder Arora

Yaar Mera… besides being the tale of Partition pathos and the lost world of syncretic culture is also an account of a father-son relationship. We get to see an entirely other side to this relationship through the depicted voyage and the numerous conversations between the duo that go into the construction of the memory which wasn’t easy to recollect and be given shape to in the textual form.


Reviewed by: Moggallan Bharti
By Damodar Mauzo. Translated from the original Konkani by Jerry Pinto

Readers who feel that they are missing something here in this almost comically polarized, existentialist formulation between dying and tea-drinking have every right to feel puzzled.For there is a hidden allusion here to Albert Camus,


Reviewed by: Harish Trivedi
By Appadurai Muttulingam. Translated from the original Tamil by Kavitha Muralidharan

Most of these stories are those of survival and not lofty heroism. Put in vulnerable and helpless situations, where solutions lie beyond their control, the courage and maturity of the characters come across in their resilience, tolerance and acceptance, despite their flaws. As readers, we witness a growth in our own empathy and understanding of the conditions of being a refugee.


Reviewed by: Aazhi Arasi
By Qurratulain Hyder. Translated from the original Urdu by Fatima Rizvi and Sufia Kidwai

The mouse offers the following response: ‘My Dear Lady, you will have to carry out a lot of research to write about them.’ This feels like an evasion to me. After all, the equally Ashraf Rahi Masoom Raza didn’t need to do a lot of research to write Aadha Gaon and the Hindu Khatri Krishna Sobti—whose Zindaginama, while centring her own caste, didn’t exclude anyone—explicitly rejected the need for research, arguing, much like Proust himself, that the writer just needed to notice and internalize what was around them. In a recent article on the Pasmanda experience, Khalid Anis Ansari says that he is ‘…attempt[ing] to capture the experience of the Muslim caste, not by unearthing the hidden secrets of everyday routines, but by shedding light on what is right in front of us and for which nothing more is required but “to take notice”.’


Reviewed by: Amitabha Bagchi