In a dusty caravanserai in seventeenth-century Mumtazabad, Cyrah, a young wanderer, meets a man who says he is a monster. Their encounter fills her with revulsion and dread, yet changes her forever. In present-day Kolkata, college professor Alok Mukherjee meets a man who claims to be a werewolf. Alone and estranged after a divorce, Alok is drawn to the stranger’s hypnotic allure, unable to tell delusion from truth, trickery from magic.// Beginning in Mughal India by the foot of the Taj Mahal and culminating in the lush, dangerous forests of the Sunderbans in twenty-first century India, The Devourers is a story about shape-shifters, hunters with second selves who prey on humans and live in the shadows of civilization. But it is also about what it means to be human, and the transformative powers of love. Utterly gripping and wholly original, it reinvents the literary fantasy novel for India, imbuing it with depth, emotion and richness.
Catagory: Fiction
Fiction main category
The Devourers
Karan Ghelo: Gujarat’s Last Rajput King
The first Indian headmaster of an English-medium school in Surat, and later Diwan of Bhuj, Nandshankar Mehta (1835-1905) was a strong advocate of social reform. Karan Ghelo, the first modern Gujarati novel and his only work of fiction, draws heavily on bardic chronicles and historic texts. // Tulsi Vatsal, a graduate of Oxford University, is an independent researcher, writer and editor. She has authored a number of books on Indian history and culture. Her latest book is Sahib, Bibi, Nawab: Baluchar Silks of Bengal 1750-1900. // Aban Mukherji is the author of Soonamai Desai of Navsari: A Biographical and Autobiographical Sketch. She is currently co-editing a nineteenth-century Gujarati text, Mumbaino Bahaar.
Aiwa Maru
A young Indian seaman sets out on a hazardous voyage from Hong Kong aboard the M.T. Aiwa Maru-a blacklisted vessel that has been banned from sailing. Although wary of the risks involved in his new assignment, Anant is mesmerized by the ship. But the terrors of the open sea are not the only perils that beset the multiracial crew of the Aiwa Maru. With the arrival of the Second Engineer’s beautiful young wife Ujjwala, Anant finds himself irresistibly drawn to her even as matters aboard this bewitching vessel spin dangerously out of control.
A cult novel in the original Marathi, Aiwa Maru is a dark and thrilling tale of passion, greed, obsession and adventure.
Family Life
It is the late 1970s. India has been wrenched by the Emergency. Ajay and Birju are taken by their parents to America so they can have a better life. In New York, their flat is tiny, the students at their school racist. The brothers forge ahead, pushed on by their ambitious parents. But then everything changes. Birju has an accident that leaves him brain-damaged, and the world around Ajay collapses. His father begins to drink, his mother takes to prayer, and it is Ajay who must now bear all the guilty weight of their love.
The Curse Of Surya
Sangeeta Rao, a beautiful, feisty reporter at Channel 7 TV in Singapore, rushes to Agra on a special assignment after an early-morning phone call. At the Taj Mahal, she meets Alan Davies, a charming Welshman. But a terrorist attack on Mathura’s renowned Krishna temple turns them into fugitives from justice and the duo must decipher a series of complex cryptographs and unearth the illustrious Shyamantaka that belonged to Surya, the Sun God, to prove their innocence. Joined in their quest by an elderly Frenchman, Anton Blanchard, the duo race against time in helicopters, motor boats and yachts. In hot pursuit are the brilliant and daring SP Nisha Sharma and the most ruthless terrorist organizations. Before she realizes it, Sangeeta is trapped in a world of betrayal, deceit and horror. Fast-paced and gripping, The Curse of Surya will keep you hooked and on the edge of your seat while you unravel one of the biggest mysteries in 5000 years.
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between the Kouravas and Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets. This magnificent 10- volume unabridged translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition compiled at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Volume 1 consists of most of Adi Parva, in which much happens before the Kouravas and the Pandavas actually arrive on the scene. This volume covers the origins of the Kuru clan; the stories of Poushya, Poulama and Astika; the births of the Kouravas and the Pandavas; the house of lac; the slaying of Hidimba and Baka; Droupadi’s marriage; and ends with the Pandavas obtaining their share of the kingdom. Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellouly accessible to contemporary readers.
The Seeker
Can a man walk on water?
Can he see the future?
Can he read people’s minds?After a deep personal loss, Maximus Pzoras, Harvard economist and Wall Street banker, sets out on a quest to find the cause of human pain and suffering. His journey takes him from New York to a hidden ashram in south India, and then to a freezing cave high in the Himalayas. And as he goes from being a cubicle dweller to a cave-dwelling yogi, he starts to develop extraordinary powers. But will Max, an investment banker turned Himalayan sage, find the answers to the questions that led him to India?
The Seeker is the story of a man’s tremendous inner transformation, a Siddhartha for our generation.
Murder in Bollywood
‘Someone at this table has killed before, and someone at this table will kill again.’
Nikhil Kapoor, Bollywood’s biggest film director, made this shocking proclamation to his friends one night. Sameer Ali Khan, Bollywood’s badshah, seethed with rage. Nyra Oberoi, filmdom’s queen- in – waiting , turned her face away . Ishan Malhotra, producer extraordinaire, laughed out loud, while Kiki Fernandez , dress designer to the stars looked afraid. Two nights later , both Nikhil and his wife, leading actress Malika Kapoor, were found dead. It is upto senior Inspector Hoshiyar Khan to solve the puzzle.
Falling Walls
‘One of the titans of twentieth-century Hindi literature’—Caravan
A young man from Jalandhar longs to become a writer but fails at every turn. Upendranath Ashk’s 1947 novel explores in great detail the trials and tribulations of Chetan. From the back galis of Lahore and Jalandhar to Shimla’s Scandal Point, Falling Walls offers a rich and intimate portrait of lower-middle-class life in the 1930s and the hurdles an aspiring writer must overcome to fulfil his ambitions.