Books

Don’t Say Goodbye Yet

Tabish Khair

Not after you made us wait 35 years. Not after this thrilling new collection of poems, subtle and intricate and so mature. Not just yet, Adil Jussawalla

Bombay in His Veins

Suhit Kelkar

Kiran Nagarkar was watching movies to put off writing, but ended up writing a novel set in Bollywood

The Poetry of the Unsettled

Shruti Ravindran

A protagonist of great sensitivity and disaffection earns debut novelist Teju Cole formidable comparisons

Rhythm and Blues

Rahul Pandita

Jeet Thayil is a fine poet, and you see his talent in Narcopolis. But this is performance poetry masquerading as a novel

A Murder Analysed, A City Revealed

Mohammed Hanif

Journalist Meenal Baghel manages to make a thrilling read of one of the most over-reported crimes of our times, widening its scope to offer a portrait

A Mixed-Up Mills & Boon

Annie Zaidi

The Harlequin formula is ‘hot boy falls for curvy girl and live fuzzily ever after’. Aastha Atray Banan’s attempt to bring in life after romance pops the glorious mirage that M&B entitles us to

Love, Sex Aur Maafi

Rosalyn D’Mello

In this 18th century erotic poem banned by the British, the courtesan Muddupalani gives us Radha, a feminist and sexual woman in rage over Krishna’s ‘betrayal’

Familiar Sorts

Trisha Gupta

In her latest collection of stories, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writes of people you feel you already know. In her assured hands, that may not be a bad thing