NON-FICTION

• MODI’S INDIA: HINDU NATIONALISM AND THE RISE OF ETHNIC DEMOCRACY

By Christophe Jaffrelot

Context

A timely identification and examination of the factors that have radically transformed India under Mr Modi’s prime ministership

• THE NUTMEG’S CURSE: PARABLES FOR A PLANET IN CRISIS

By Amitav Ghosh

Allen Lane

Amitav Ghosh looks at the unfolding climate crisis and concomitant ecological changes, and also suggests a feasible resolution even as the world witnessed yet another climate summit making little headway.

• SCORCHING LOVE: LETTERS FROM MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI TO HIS SON, DEVADAS

Edited by Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Tridip Suhrud

Oxford

This book combines the novelty of its material with formidable erudition to make an invaluable addition to scholarly works on the Mahatma.

• REBELS AGAINST THE RAJ: WESTERN FIGHTERS FOR INDIA’S FREEDOM

By Ramachandra Guha

Allen Lane

The resurrection of seven men and women from the West who challenged the yoke of colonialism

• LIBERALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

By Francis Fukuyama

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

A prudent examination of a contemporary concern — the crisis of liberalism — that also suggests a possible way out

• TRANSLATING MYSELF AND OTHERS

By Jhumpa Lahiri

Princeton

A collection of essays that delves deep into a writer’s pain and pleasure, discovery and loss, ass

• WINGED STALLIONS AND WICKED MARES: HORSES IN INDIAN MYTH AND HISTORY

By Wendy Doniger

Speaking Tiger

Standing at the intriguing intersection between commodity and environmental and cultural history, the book looks at the equine as a metaphor for human triumph and frailties across time, geography and culture.

• 1946: LAST WAR OF INDEPENDENCE — ROYAL INDIAN NAVY MUTINY

By Pramod Kapoor

Roli

A close look at a momentous chapter of the Indian freedom struggle that has been relegated to the footnotes of popular history.

• THE TRUTHS AND LIES OF NATIONALISM: AS NARRATED BY CHARVAK

By Partha Chatterjee

Permanent Black/Ashoka University

Partha Chatterjee revives a quixotic voice that reflects on some of the most pressing concerns regarding nation and nationalism.

• DANGEROUS RHYTHMS: JAZZ AND THE UNDERWORLD

By T.J. English

William Morrow

The unveiling of a fascinating symbiotic relationship between a popular musical genre and crime.

• THE AFGHANISTAN PAPERS: A SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR

By Craig Whitlock

Simon & Schuster

A gifted journalist lists the multiple failures of the United States of America in Afghanistan, principal among which was the insularity of the American enterprise.

• MEAT, MERCY, MORALITY: ANIMALS AND HUMANITARIANISM IN COLONIAL BENGAL, 1850-1920

By Samiparna Samanta

Oxford

An ingenious reassessment of the material conditions and culture of colonial Bengal through domesticated animals.

Liberating the historical image from hierarchy is the singular achievement of “The Archival Gaze: A Timeline of Photography in India, 1840s-2020” (Kiran Nadar Museum of Art). This photograph, taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, portrays Jawaharlal Nehru announcing the death of M.K. Gandhi to a crowd.

• A BEGUM & A RANI: HAZRAT MAHAL AND LAKSHMIBAI IN 1857

By Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Allen Lane

A chronicle of the Revolt focussed on two regal women to expose lingering anomalies in historiography that have led to the prioritising of the rani over the begum.

• ABOUT TIME: A HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN TWELVE CLOCKS

By David Rooney

W.W. Norton

An engaging exploration of the transitions in time-keeping traditions and their impact on human thought and practice.

• INFLAMED: DEEP MEDICINE AND THE ANATOMY OF INJUSTICE

By Rupa Marya and Raj Patel

Allen Lane

The volume reveals the connections among the health of the human body, medicine, society and the planet to reveal why they are on a perpetual, debilitating fire.

BURNING QUESTIONS: ESSAYS AND OCCASIONAL PIECES 2004-2021

By Margaret Atwood

Doubleday

A collection of relevant, critical issues that Margaret Atwood addresses, combining perceptiveness and puzzlement.

• LADY DOCTORS: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF INDIA’S FIRST WOMEN IN MEDICINE

By Kavitha Rao

Westland

Kavitha Rao brings together the lives and labour of some Indian women who revolutionised private lives and public spaces.

• NOMADS: THE WANDERERS WHO SHAPED OUR WORLD

By Anthony Sattin

John Murray

A lucid portrayal of complex historical threads that weave together the fascinating history and contributions of the world’s earliest migrants.

TALES OF HAZARIBAGH: AN INTIMATE EXPLORATION OF CHHOTANAGPUR PLATEAU

By Mihir Vatsa

Speaking Tiger

This winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar combines finesse and philosophy to interrogate the layered notion of home.

FICTION

TOMB OF SAND

By Geetanjali Shree

Penguin

The winner of the International Booker Prize 2022, translated into English by Daisy Rockwell, is a poignant journey across the border to pick up the pieces of lives severed by the Partition.

Geetanjali Shree

• AN ISLAND

By Karen Jennings

Pan Macmillan

Karen Jennings paints a disturbing picture of humanity by blurring the borders between care and violence, refuge and oppression, and solitude and companionship.

• COMPANION PIECE: A NOVEL

By Ali Smith

Hamish Hamilton

The book is an ode to the beauty of human failings, perpetual crisis and the evasiveness of the answers that we seek.

• THE EARTHSPINNER

By Anuradha Roy

Hachette

The Earthspinner gestures beyond the humdrum realities of everyday life and points towards an amalgamation of the mundane and the cosmic.

• MY PEN IS THE WING OF A BIRD: NEW FICTION BY AFGHAN WOMEN

Quercus

A first and unique anthology of short fiction by Afghan women in which anonymous writers write about family and friendship, growing up, coming to terms with oneself, and living a life in a war-ridden country still fraught with pre-modern cultural traditions.

• YOUNG MUNGO

By Douglas Stuart

Picador

The novel sits comfortably between a thriller and a sensitive exploration of an adolescent boy.

• BITTER ORANGE TREE

By Jokha Alharthi

Simon & Schuster

An investigation into the labyrinth of the human mind and memories, revealing the thin line that separates longing and belonging.

• THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES

By Elif Shafak

Penguin

This inward journey of realisation is about how people who lose a home rebuild their lives with a strong sense of resilience and acceptance like the cuttings from a tree that dies a harsh death to come to life again in new soil.

• LETTER TO A STRANGER: ESSAYS TOTHE ONES WHO HAUNT US

Edited by Colleen Kinder

Algonquin

Comprising reminiscences of momentary rendezvous with strangers from the past that left an indelible impact, these fictional letters etch out emotions that could not be expressed earlier.

• EVERYTHING THE LIGHT TOUCHES

By Janice Pariat

HarperCollins

Some important questions — how was botanical knowledge gathered and whose voices were erased in the process? — are raised in this work of eco-fiction, exposing multiple kinds of inequality in the world of science.

• VIOLETA

By Isabel Allende

Bloomsbury

Isabel Allende tells a sweeping story involving a great many characters and bearing witness to a century’s worth of upheaval in the world.

• THE LAST CONFESSIONS OF SYLVIA P.

By Lee Kravetz

Harper

A thrilling record of three lives with an intersection — Sylvia Plath — which explores the place that the author has come to occupy in the literary canon.

• JEZEBEL

By K.R. Meera

Hamish Hamilton

Jezebel examines the marginalised lives of women, the stereotypes and stigmas they have to fight, and their resilience in the face of trials.

• VILLAINY

By Upamanyu Chatterjee

Speaking Tiger

Even as Villainy thrills with its twists, it zooms into slices of life in a way classic thrillers don’t, choosing not to focus on the crime and the solving of it alone.

• ELIZABETH FINCH

By Julian Barnes

Vintage

A rumination on the art of writing biographies, a task that both intrigues and confuses the protagonist.

• LEARNING TO TALK

By Hilary Mantel

Henry Holt and Co.

The volume brings together six short stories, written over several years, that draw upon the author’s difficult childhood and explore the unsettling complexities at the heart of memorialising the past.

• SILVERVIEW

By John le Carré

Viking

In a voice that is unmistakable, Silverview fast-forwards the familiar ghosts of Cold War spycraft to the bloody ethnic and religious conflicts of Bosnia in the 1990s.

• THE LAST WHITE MAN

By Mohsin Hamid

Hamish Hamilton

Identifying the boundaries of fiction, the novel delves into politics and racism in the 21st century.

• EITHER/OR

By Elif Batuman

Penguin

A künstlerroman that exposes the limits of the novel as a genre and takes apart misogynistic portraits of women at the same time.

BIOGRAPHY

• WORDS FOR BIRDS: THE COLLECTED RADIO BROADCASTS

By Sálim Ali

Black Kite

This compilation of transcripts of radio talks delivered by India’s foremost birdman reveals his aesthetic appreciation for nature.

• I AM NOT A SILENT SPECTATOR: WHY TRUTH HAS BECOME SO BITTER, DISSENT SO INTOLERABLE, JUSTICE SO OUT OF REACH

By Stan Swamy

Indian Social Institute

A first-person account that offers important glimpses of the work of Stan Swamy as well as the challenges to adivasi life.

• A RUDE LIFE: THE MEMOIR

By Vir Sanghvi

Viking

Unveils the India that Vir Sanghvi covered as a journalist and includes exciting anecdotes about politicians, actors, businessmen and gangsters.

• THE DREAM OF REVOLUTION: A BIOGRAPHY OF JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

By Bimal Prasad and Sujata Prasad

Vintage

The biographers chart the events and forces that shaped the life and times of one of India’s prominent political revolutionaries.

• ENCOUNTER WITH KIRAN: FRAGMENTS FROM A RELATIONSHIP

By Nayantara Sahgal

Speaking Tiger

A compilation of private letters exchanged between the two writers, Nayantara Sahgal and Kiran Nagarkar. These epistolary ‘encounters’ focus on their shared visions, sorrows, joys, challenges and triumphs.

The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer (John Murray) by Cristopher Clarey stitches together vignettes that help readers piece together a complete picture of the tennis great.

• THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE FERNANDES

By Rahul Ramagundam

Allen Lane

A touching reconstruction of the fiery trade union leader’s legacy of activism and a tale of how he went on to become a potent political force.

THE CINEMA OF TAPAN SINHA: AN INTRODUCTION

By Amitava Nag

Om

A knowledgeable evaluation of the philosophy and the artistic sensibilities of a luminiscent figure in Bengali cinema.

• THE COMMISSIONER FOR LOST CAUSES

By Arun Shourie

Viking

In a country whose institutions have been rendered fragile in recent times, Arun Shourie’s memoir is an exhaustive account of the valuable lessons learnt in the course of India’s nation-building enterprise.

• THE CASE OF THE MARRIED WOMAN: CAROLINE NORTON AND HER FIGHT FOR WOMEN’S JUSTICE

By Antonia Fraser

Pegasus

Meticulously researched, gossipy and entertaining, the book casts a refreshing look upon one of history’s ‘bad’ girls.

• THE WAR MAGICIAN

By David Fisher

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Chronicles the success of a man who had cast a spell on the Nazis and helped the Allied forces.