Reading Afghanistan as the Taliban take over: Seven books (none of them by Khaled Hosseini)

What fiction, poetry and memoirs from the country can tell us.

Suhasini Patni

· Aug 29, 2021 · 08:30 am

A reader’s guide to the 13 books longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021

The shortlist will be announced on September 14, and the winner of the £50,000 prize, on November 3.

Suhasini Patni

· Aug 01, 2021 · 05:30 pm

A reader’s guide to the six books shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2021

The winners of the 50,000 prize, to be shared equally between writer and translator, will be announced on June 2, 2021.

Suhasini Patni

· May 15, 2021 · 12:30 pm

‘Earthlings’: This novel by the author of ‘Convenience Store Woman’ will make you very uneasy

Sayak Murata writes once again about those who cannot fit into society but have to be part of it.

Suhasini Patni

· Nov 29, 2020 · 06:30 pm

‘These, Our Bodies, Possessed By Light’: Women are in love, with their relationships with themselves

Despite the rotating unhappiness of the characters, Dharini Bhaskar’s novel is actually a happy one.

Suhasini Patni

· Oct 04, 2020 · 12:30 pm

A reader’s guide to the ten books on the Rs 25-lakh JCB Prize for Literature 2020 longlist

Six women writers, one woman translator, four debut novels.

Suhasini Patni

· Sep 01, 2020 · 11:44 am

A reader’s quick guide to all 13 novels on the Booker Prize 2020 longlist

Of the 13 writers, nine are women, and eight of the 13 books are debuts.

Suhasini Patni

· Aug 02, 2020 · 12:30 pm

This novel records the tricky existence of a nurse whose sister cannot stop murdering her boyfriends

Why does Ayoola kill her lovers? Is it self-defence, trauma or because she can? Oyinkan Braithwaite’s ‘My Sister The Serial Killer’ is a quickie done right.

Suhasini Patni

· Nov 24, 2019 · 08:30 am

This work of auto-fiction is funny, tender, and shattering. Blame the writer, Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ is a personal story that kills softly with its terrible beauty.

Suhasini Patni

· Oct 12, 2019 · 05:30 pm

For the first time in recent years, a novel set in Afghanistan talks about intimacy, not just war

Jamil Jan Kochai’s focus on this domesticity itself is an act of subversion, and that his family is not just full of tragedy and conflict is a delight.

Suhasini Patni

· Sep 28, 2019 · 08:30 am

A child’s muteness pits nurture and love against a male culture of success in this Iranian novel

Parinoush Saniee’s Iranian novel ‘I Hid My Voice’ also navigates the burdens the women in a family have to carry.

Suhasini Patni

· Sep 01, 2019 · 08:30 am

No matter who bags the Booker Prize this year, women authors are the winners

A quick survey of the eight (out of the total of 13) longlisted books that are written by women.

Suhasini Patni

· Jul 27, 2019 · 08:30 am