All information sourced from publishers.
Railsong, Rahul Bhattacharya
In a young country charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless child of a railway worker, pines for a life freed of oppressive domesticity. As diesel engines replace steam, and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, strike, chokes the railway township, she dares to imagine a different future for herself. Boarding a train she flees westwards to Bombay, even as the country rumbles towards Emergency. In the frenetic landscape of the great modern metropolis, Charu, the budding adventuress, seeks the means to live on her own terms.
Tenaciously, she fills the blanks in her life – the idealistic, artistic father Animesh, whom she abandoned; the enigmatic mother Jigyasa, long gone; her funny surname Chitol that no one recognises; her bank balance – with her own material. Negotiating the treacherous planes of love, she marries a sheltered easy-goer. Fighting tragedy and loss, she becomes, after all, a railway woman. Against the rapidly clarifying prejudices around her, unfazed by everyday discriminations, she remains a small hero, an Everywoman who keeps her heart open – sometimes guilelessly – to her nation’s vast possibilities.
The Guardian and the Thief, Megha Majumdar
In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.
Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom. With stunning control and command, Megha Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.
The Greatest Stories from the Northeast Ever Told, edited by Jobeth Ann Warjri
Selected and edited by Jobeth Ann Warjri, The Greatest Stories from the Northeast Ever Told is a magnificent collection of 27 short stories from the region. The anthology includes stories by established writers such as Saurav Kumar Chaliha, Bhabendra Nath Saikia, Temsula Ao, Mamoni Raisom Goswami, and Mamang Dai; contemporary writers such as Janice Pariat, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Anjum Hasan, Avinuo Kire, Prajwal Parajuly, and Aruni Kashyap; and distinct new voices such as Gankhu Sumnyan, Mainu Teronpi, Shalim M Hussain, Mayookh Barua, and Lede E Miki Pohshna.
At once tender and turbulent, political and personal, magical and real, these stories will leave an indelible imprint on all readers.
Half Light, Mahesh Rao
In the misty mountains of Darjeeling, a landslide entraps the guests and staff of a dilapidated hotel. Cooped up inside, two men exchange lingering glances. For carefree Neville, this is one of many exhilarating encounters, stolen kisses in stairways and parked cars. But for Pavan, an employee desperate to avoid detection, their entanglement prises open his carefully contained and solitary existence with unforgettable consequences.
Four years later, their paths cross again amidst the towering skyscrapers and ghostly smog of Mumbai. Pavan has fled the hills, burying all memories of their encounter, while Neville is now a flailing graduate, craving something more than the naked torsos blowing up his phone. When he glimpses Pavan working behind the reception of a luxurious hotel, he demands a meeting, pursuing him with mischief and menace as the secrets of their time together threaten to tumble into the light.
Set on the brink of India’s ruling to decriminalise homosexuality, this is a tender, richly atmospheric and elegantly wry story of outlawed desire and the hope of a life beyond concealment.
The Little Book of Goodbyes, Ravi Shankar Etteth
This collection of stories captures the innocent intimacy that binds children, parents and grandparents, friends and lovers, and unlikely landmarks in faraway cities. Rooted in the memory of a childhood spent in Kerala, it travels through Malabar and Delhi to Dresden and New York, encountering gods, ghosts and old friends with equal aplomb, landing finally in the cool valleys of Mussoorie. Along the way, it weaves stories that illuminate the best things of life: friendship, loyalty, affection, laughter, while being mindful every moment of the inevitability of departure.
Love and Crime in the Time of Plague, Anuradha Kumar
Within weeks, a miasma of fear engulfs the city as ship-borne rats overrun its nooks and crannies, and more and more of its inhabitants fall sick – and die. Dr Acacio Viegas is the first to ring the alarm – it is the plague. The only way to control it is to sanitise the city’s slums, clean its drains, report any fever, and stay at home. The British Administration embarks on these measures on a war footing – until warning notes begin to turn up at Doctors’ House, where Maya Barton lives with Dr Charlotte Ellaby, and at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital – notes that threaten those who are “interfering” with people’s religion and customs with dire consequences – all signed by the “Native Society”.
Maya and her friend Henry Baker, the American trade counsel, are soon hot on the trail of the Society, which leads them to the formidable Rangnekar Bhau, the Society’s founder, and its Secretary, the treacherous Satarkar, who hates everything new and “modern”, whether the British and the brown sahibs, and their so-called anti-plague drive, or women like Maya, who think too much of themselves.
As Maya and Henry unravel the mystery, they draw closer to each other and to what could be a future together. And Maya learns more about Reverend Barton, who could have been her father, and the Kashmiri woman who might have been her mother.
