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Tag: Fiction

  • Em and the Big Hoom

    The unnamed narrator lives with his sister Susan and their parents in a cramped flat in Mahim, Bombay. His mother Imelda, called Em, smokes beedis, swears inventively and talks with startling candour, and she lives with bipolar disorder that sends her into periods of mania and despair, including attempts on her own life. His father Augustine, the Big Hoom, is calm, reliable and quietly devoted.

    Through Em's letters, diaries and long conversations with her son, the novel pieces together how Em and the Big Hoom met and married in the 1950s and how the family lives around her illness, with hospital visits, neighbours' gossip and endless cups of tea. Humour sits right beside sorrow on every page.

    Jerry Pinto drew on his own family history, and the book is admired for its honesty about mental illness and its love for its characters. It won The Hindu Literary Prize and the Crossword Book Award and has been translated into several languages. It is short and quickly read.

    Book details

    AuthorJerry Pinto
    First published2012
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)240
    SettingMahim, Bombay, 1950s to 1990s
    AwardsThe Hindu Literary Prize 2013

    Themes

    • Mental illness
    • Family love
    • Caregiving
    • Humour and grief
    • Marriage

    Who should read it

    Readers who appreciate warm, honest writing about families living with mental illness.

  • Ghachar Ghochar

    The narrator, an unnamed young man in Bangalore, spends his afternoons at a coffee house watching the world and taking advice from a waiter named Vincent. He lives with his parents, his sister Malati and his uncle Chikkappa, whose spice trading business lifted the family from a cramped, ant-infested rented house into a bigger home and an easy life.

    The narrator nominally works for the business but does nothing; the family depends on Chikkappa and protects him fiercely. When the narrator marries Anita, a woman with firm principles who refuses to accept how things are done, her presence exposes the family's moral compromises and the quiet menace that holds it together.

    Vivek Shanbhag's novella, originally written in Kannada and translated into English by Srinath Perur, is short, wry and precise, with tension built from small domestic details. It drew international praise when it appeared in the UK and US in 2017, and its title is a made-up phrase for something hopelessly entangled.

    Book details

    AuthorVivek Shanbhag
    First published2013
    Original languageKannada
    Translated bySrinath Perur
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)118
    SettingBangalore, early 21st century

    Themes

    • Money and morality
    • Family loyalty
    • Class mobility
    • Complicity
    • Marriage

    Who should read it

    Readers who like short, unsettling literary fiction about how money reshapes a family.

  • Tomb of Sand

    After her husband's death, Ma, an elderly woman in a north Indian family, takes to her bed and turns her back on the household gathered around her. When she finally rises, it is as a changed person: playful, unpredictable and keen to do things her family never imagined, including moving in with her unconventional daughter, Beti, a writer who lives independently.

    Ma's new friendship with Rosie, a hijra, adds to the family's confusion, and her desire to cross the border into Pakistan leads her back to a past from the time of Partition that she has never spoken about. Beti, who has always been the free one, finds herself watching her mother outdo her in rebellion.

    Originally published in Hindi as Ret Samadhi, the novel is playful and digressive, with talking crows, puns and stories within stories. Daisy Rockwell's translation won the International Booker Prize in 2022, the first time the award went to a book translated from an Indian language.

    Book details

    AuthorGeetanjali Shree
    First published2018
    Original languageHindi
    Translated byDaisy Rockwell
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    SettingDelhi and northern India, and Pakistan, present day
    AwardsInternational Booker Prize 2022

    Themes

    • Old age and renewal
    • Mothers and daughters
    • Partition memory
    • Borders
    • Gender

    Who should read it

    Adventurous readers who enjoy playful, experimental prose and stories about women reclaiming their lives.

  • Godan

    Hori Mahto is a peasant farmer in the village of Belari in the United Provinces, struggling to keep his small plot and pay off debts to landlords, moneylenders and priests. His one dream is to own a cow, a symbol of status and religious merit, and the cow he finally acquires sets off a chain of jealousy and misfortune within his own family.

    His wife Dhaniya is outspoken and fearless where Hori is cautious and anxious to keep up appearances, and their son Gobar defies village customs and leaves for Lucknow. A parallel plot follows the city's educated elite, including a philosopher, a doctor and a landowner, contrasting rural hardship with urban debates about reform.

    Published in 1936, the year of Premchand's death, Godan is often considered the greatest Hindi novel, an unsentimental portrait of exploitation in colonial village India. Gordon C. Roadarmel's English translation appeared as The Gift of a Cow. It remains essential reading in Indian schools and universities and is a touchstone for rural fiction.

    Book details

    AuthorMunshi Premchand
    First published1936
    Original languageHindi
    Translated byGordon C. Roadarmel
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    SettingBelari village and Lucknow, United Provinces, 1930s

    Themes

    • Rural poverty
    • Debt and exploitation
    • Caste
    • Dignity
    • City and village

    Who should read it

    Readers who want the essential classic of Hindi literature about peasant life under colonial rule.

  • Nirmala

    Nirmala is a teenage girl whose engagement collapses after her father's death leaves the family unable to pay the expected dowry. Her mother arranges a match with Totaram, a lawyer about twice her age with three sons from his first marriage, and Nirmala enters his household as a wife barely older than his eldest son, Mansaram.

    Totaram, insecure about his age, grows jealous of Nirmala's friendly relationship with Mansaram, and his suspicion sets off events that slowly poison the entire family. Premchand shows how each person, including Totaram's widowed sister, is trapped by customs they did not choose. Gossip and rumour do as much damage as any villain.

    First serialised in the magazine Chand in the mid-1920s and later published as a book, the novel is a powerful critique of the dowry system and marriages between young girls and older men. Alok Rai's English translation is widely read, and the story was adapted for Doordarshan television.

    Book details

    AuthorMunshi Premchand
    First published1927
    Original languageHindi
    Translated byAlok Rai
    GenreClassic
    TypeFiction
    SettingA town in north India, 1920s

    Themes

    • Dowry
    • Child marriage
    • Jealousy
    • Women's oppression
    • Social reform

    Who should read it

    Readers interested in classic Hindi fiction and early literary critiques of dowry and child marriage.

  • 2 States

    Krish Malhotra and Ananya Swaminathan meet in the mess at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and fall in love over study sessions and late-night conversations. By graduation they want to marry, but they decide to do it properly: both families must agree, which proves harder than any entrance exam.

    Krish takes a bank job in Chennai to charm Ananya's reserved, conservative parents, tutoring her brother and arranging a concert for her father's company. Ananya, in turn, faces Krish's loud Punjabi relatives and his mother's open suspicion of South Indians, while Krish deals with his strained relationship with his father.

    Partly based on Chetan Bhagat's own marriage, the novel is a light comedy about regional stereotypes, food, language and family politics in modern India. It became a 2014 Hindi film starring Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt. Short chapters, wisecracking narration and family set pieces keep it moving, making it an easy holiday read.

    Book details

    AuthorChetan Bhagat
    First published2009
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreRomance
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)269
    SettingIIM Ahmedabad, Chennai and Delhi, 2000s

    Themes

    • Inter-community marriage
    • Cultural stereotypes
    • Family approval
    • Parents and children

    Who should read it

    Readers wanting a breezy romantic comedy about a north-south Indian love story.

  • The 3 Mistakes of My Life

    Govind Patel, a maths-loving young man from a modest Ahmedabad family, dreams of running a business. With his friends Ishaan, a cricket fanatic whose own playing career stalled, and Omi, the son of a temple priest, he opens a small cricket-goods shop in the temple compound, and the three begin coaching boys in the neighbourhood.

    They discover Ali, a Muslim boy with an extraordinary batting talent, and Ishaan becomes determined to help him reach the national team. Meanwhile Govind tutors Ishaan's sister Vidya in maths, and a secret romance begins. The 2001 Gujarat earthquake, rising political tension and the Godhra train burning of 2002 push the friends into situations that test their loyalty.

    Framed as a story Govind tells the author after a suicide attempt, the novel mixes business ambition, cricket and romance with communal violence. It was adapted into the acclaimed 2013 film Kai Po Che! It is among Bhagat's darker books, and its treatment of the riots gives it more weight than his campus comedies.

    Book details

    AuthorChetan Bhagat
    First published2008
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)258
    SettingAhmedabad, Gujarat, 2000 to 2002

    Themes

    • Friendship
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Communal violence
    • Cricket
    • Secret romance

    Who should read it

    Young readers who like fast, accessible fiction about friendship and ambition against a real backdrop.

  • The Immortals of Meluha

    In 1900 BC, Shiva leads his small Guna tribe down from the slopes of Mount Kailash to Meluha, a wealthy, orderly empire of the Suryavanshis founded by Lord Ram. The Meluhans owe their long lives to the Somras, a drink of immortality, and they are struggling against terror attacks they blame on the rival Chandravanshi kingdom and a deformed people called the Nagas.

    When Shiva drinks the Somras, his throat turns blue, fulfilling the Meluhans' legend of the Neelkanth, a destroyer of evil. A reluctant hero who swears, smokes and doubts himself, he is drawn into war, falls in love with Sati, a princess bound by the empire's rules on the untouchable vikarma, and begins to question whether the line between good and evil is as clear as the Meluhans claim.

    The first book in the Shiva Trilogy reimagines a god as a historical man, mixing mythology, action and modern dialogue. It was a publishing phenomenon in India and helped create a market for mythological fiction in English. Its plain, contemporary language is part of the appeal, and Shiva's doubts make him an approachable hero.

    Book details

    AuthorAmish Tripathi
    First published2010
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreMythology
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)390
    SettingMeluha, an empire based on the Indus Valley civilisation, around 1900 BC

    Themes

    • Good versus evil
    • Destiny
    • Reluctant heroism
    • Caste and karma
    • Love

    Who should read it

    Readers who enjoy fast-paced fantasy rooted in Indian mythology and history.

  • The Secret of the Nagas

    The second book of the Shiva Trilogy picks up immediately after the first, with Shiva determined to find the masked Naga who attacked Sati. The search takes him and his companions beyond Meluha to Kashi, a city of tolerance on the Ganga, and to Branga, a kingdom desperate for a medicine that only the Nagas seem able to supply.

    Along the way Shiva learns that the Nagas are not the monsters he was told about, and he encounters figures who will transform his understanding of his family, including the fierce Naga queen Kali and a young warrior named Ganesh. Battles with pirates, a plague and political betrayals keep the plot moving quickly.

    Amish expands his world with new kingdoms and philosophies, asking whether evil is a people or a force. The novel ends on a revelation that sets up the final volume, and like its predecessor it sold in huge numbers across India. Its pace rarely slows.

    Book details

    AuthorAmish Tripathi
    First published2011
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreMythology
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)396
    SettingKashi, Branga, Panchavati and the Narmada region, ancient India around 1900 BC

    Themes

    • Prejudice
    • Family secrets
    • Nature of evil
    • Loyalty
    • Destiny

    Who should read it

    Readers who enjoyed The Immortals of Meluha and want to see the Shiva saga widen.

  • The Oath of the Vayuputras

    The third book brings Shiva to the heart of the mystery he has been chasing: what the real evil of his age is, and who has been protecting it. His search takes him to Pariha, home of the Vayuputras, a secretive tribe of the previous Mahadev's followers, whose oath and knowledge prove crucial to the choices ahead.

    With the kingdoms of India dividing into alliances, the novel turns into a war story of sieges, naval battles and political deals, while also exploring Shiva's relationships with Sati, Ganesh, Kartik and the Naga queen Kali. Amish uses the conflict to question whether a resource that benefits some can be justified by the harm it does to others.

    This is the longest book of the trilogy and closes the saga that made its author famous. Readers new to the series should start with The Immortals of Meluha, as the plot depends heavily on the earlier books. It ties together threads from all three books, sometimes at length.

    Book details

    AuthorAmish Tripathi
    First published2013
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreMythology
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)565
    SettingMeluha, Swadweep, Pariha and Devagiri, ancient India around 1900 BC

    Themes

    • War and its cost
    • Nature of evil
    • Sacrifice
    • Environmental harm
    • Duty

    Who should read it

    Fans of the first two Shiva books who want the epic conclusion.