fiction
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Banaras Lit Fest 2026 Book Awards announces longlists in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translation
Scroll Staff
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Espionage fiction: Aditya’s mission threatens to upset the balance between patriotism and power
Anirudhya Mitra
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Horror fiction: A haunting in the heartland ends with a priest’s violent death. Who is to blame?
Rohan Monteiro
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Short fiction: A ‘fallen’ woman and her dead baby get a seven-gun salute at their funerals
Ravi Shankar Etteth
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‘Real Life’: Amrita Mahale’s new novel considers women who violate the mandates of caste and gender
Sharmistha Jha
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Mythological fiction: After the war, Karna lives in a gurukul, trying to bury the ghosts of the past
Kevin Missal
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Fiction: The idea of India seen through the eyes of a Turkish intellectual and freedom fighter
Inez Baranay
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Sophie Kinsella (1968-2025) showed that ‘light’ fiction can speak to women’s real lives
Charlotte Ireland, The Conversation
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Fiction: Delphi tries to find her footing in theatre while also navigating realities of her youth
Deepika Arwind
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From an anthology on loneliness: A couple waits out a violent night of blackout in silence
Mamta Kalia Pooja Sancheti
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Fiction: Rukmini stumbles upon old letters and finds herself drawn to courtesan–poet Munni Bai Hijab
Tarana Husain Khan
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Fiction: The discovery of a skeleton from a house is followed by a high-profile murder-suicide case
Salil Desai
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Sunday book pick: In ‘Terrific Mother’, a woman’s search for self after accidentally killing a baby
Sayari Debnath
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‘Lonely People Meet’: Sayantan Ghosh’s debut loses its way in philosophy and alternate reality
Diya Sengupta
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‘Half Light’ by Mahesh Rao: The many silences that queer subjects negotiate in their everyday lives
Rahul Singh
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‘Spotless’: Vibha Batra’s young adult novel reinforces the idea that beauty is always skin-deep
Shibani Phukan
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‘Our Friends In Good Houses’: Rahul Pandita’s debut novel is a haunting quest for home
Priyanka Dubey
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Diaspora fiction: Three generations of women are connected by a tapestry
Asha Thanki
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Fiction: Two young girls fall in love in a country where same sex relationships are a crime
Musih Tedji Xaviere
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Short fiction: A man asks his wife of thirty years for a divorce on a flight to Switzerland
Naina More