Books

The Subaltern Sings

Shruti Ravindran

Gogu Shyamala, a Dalit feminist and Telangana activist, writes captivating short stories about life in rural Andhra Pradesh

One Hundred Years of Good Girlitude

Saba Imtiaz

The lessons of Bahishti Zevar, advising Muslim women to defer to their husbands and never consider them their equals, are still popular with talk show hosts in Pakistan

When Something Works

Tabish Khair

As with her first collection of poems, Tishani Doshi’s best poems here are those in which a female experience, located boldly in the body, works as a comment on something larger

The Free Man

Annie Zaidi

Ah, the joys of reading a diasporic story that’s not angsting itself silly over finding one’s roots

All Noisy on the Western Front

Aresh Shirali

How did the West suddenly get so much richer than the East about 350 years ago? Another book on business history, another explanation

Legendary Bharatanatyam dancer Balasaraswati’s story, as told by her son-in-law, is pleasant enough but it glosses over the debate at the heart of the art form—the abuse inherent in the devadasi system

The Importance of Living Intensely

Shruti Ravindran

Teju Cole on the impossibility of being an invisible author, and the need to turn down dinner invitations

Dazzled by Their Soul

Hartosh Singh Bal

Our politician poets such as Kapil Sibal are so in love with themselves that they believe every eructation of theirs deserves a readership. Our literary culture is more than happy to oblige

Power of Celibacy

Michael Edison Hayden

Joseph S Alter’s book studies masculinity in modern India and spans territories as distinct—if linked—as wrestling, exercise and saving semen

Dirty Rotten Murderers

Kavitha Rao

Modern crime fiction seems to have caught up with the perversity of real-life violence. Gone are the days when the little grey cells were all that was important to a racy read