The Comeback, Annie Zaidi
Riding high on the success of his first major film, actor John K lets his ego get the better of him and says too much in a fateful interview. The fallout shatters the life of his college friend, Asghar Abbasi. Disgraced, unemployed, his marriage in jeopardy, Asghar’s stable middle-class life is thrust into crisis. Broken but unbowed, Asghar retreats to his hometown, Baansa, where he rediscovers his true calling – the stage.
Devastated by the betrayal, he is determined to cut John out of his life; John, while remorseful, is equally determined to claw his way back in. As Asghar’s grassroots small-town theatre takes off, John’s star begins to dim, leaving him stuck in a career that pays the bills but is artistically stultifying. On the outside and desperate to be part of Asghar’s theatre comeback, John is forced to discover the limits of his self-centredness and confront his ego, the shallow allure of fame, and the false hierarchies of the arts.
Deviants: The Queer Family Chronicles, Santanu Bhattacharya
Vivaan, a teenager in India’s silicon plateau, has discovered love on his smartphone. Intoxicating, boundary-breaking love. His parents know he is gay, and their support is something Vivaan can count on, but they don’t know what exactly their son gets up to in the online world.
For his uncle, born thirty years earlier, things were very different. Mambro’s life changed forever when he fell for a male classmate at a time when, and in a country where, the persecution of gay people was rife under a colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality.
And before Mambro came his uncle Sukumar, a young man hopelessly in love with another young man, but forced by social taboos to keep their relationship a secret at all costs. Sukumar would never live the life he yearned for, but his story would ignite and inspire his nephew and grand-nephew after him.
Tales from Qabristan, Sabin Iqbal
In a small backwater village in Kerala, Farook prepares to bury his father in the qabristan behind the mosque. As the rituals proceed, he is filled with memories of his growing years. Memories of the village, of secret lives, sexual proclivities, superstitions – and above all, the slow decaying of his family.
Ram C/o Anandhi, Akhil P Dharmajan, translated from the Malayam by Haritha CK
When aspiring filmmaker Ram leaves peaceful Alleppey for bustling Chennai, he dreams of making movies and writing novels.
Instead, he meets Anandhi.
She’s fierce. He’s ambitious. She’s a receptionist at his film school. He’s the student who drives her crazy.
Neither expects to fall in love.
But as their hostility turns to passion, Ram and Anandhi face impossible choices. With social barriers, and their own fears standing in the way, they'll have to decide if their love is worth fighting for.
The Artful Murders, Feisal Alkazi
In a leafy lane in South Delhi’s Greater Kailash-II, all is not well. Lakshmi Krishnamurthi, the lovable “Madrasi aunty” of the neighbourhood, has not been seen for 48 hours. When her neighbour, Ragini Malhotra, accompanies Vikas, the local cop, to investigate, she finds a painting missing from the wall – a five-crore Husain.
Meanwhile, far away, on the Mumbai-Pune highway, Pratap, a long-distance driver, is found stabbed to death. In the car with him, that night were an unidentified man and Shobhana Shandilya, a glamorous Mumbai socialite, twice divorced, who has set her sights on the well-known scientist Afroz Ahmed as husband number three.
Is there a connection between the two crimes? Housewife turned Sherlock Holmes Ragini Malhotra discovers that there may just be – when she meets Mrs Krishnamurthi’s niece, the nubile young Bharatanatyam dancer Saudamini, and the seemingly genteel Ruksana Begum, once MF Husain’s muse.
It’s a tangled web, and Ragini’s detective skills will be properly tested. Ably assisted by Raunaq, an auto driver, Rudy, Pratap’s gay partner, and Premlata Puri, a private investigator, Mrs Malhotra joins the dots to bring this intricate mesh of love, betrayal, greed, deceit and art smuggling to a startling conclusion.
The Owl, the River, and the Valley, Arupa Patangia Kalita, translated from the Assamese by Mitra Phukan
In Arupa Patangia Kalita’s stories, contemporary women in Assam take centerstage. The deeply lyrical and empathetic stories talk about issues like surrogacy, migration, living in a colonial legacy, employment, and history – all of which affect women in the region today.
All information sourced from publishers.
