‘I am not sure that I am a man,’ said Yuvanashva. ‘I have created life outside me as men do. But I have also created life inside me, as women do. What does that make me? Will a body such as mine fetter or free me?’
Among the many hundreds of characters who inhabit the Mahabharata, perhaps the world’s greatest epic and certainly one of the oldest, is Yuvanashva, a childless king, who accidentally drinks a magic potion meant to make his queens pregnant and gives birth to a son. This extraordinary novel is his story.
It is also the story of his mother Shilavati, who cannot be king because she is a woman; of young Somvat, who surrenders his genitals to become a wife; of Shikhandi, a daughter brought up as a son, who fathers a child with a borrowed penis; of Arjuna, the great warrior with many wives, who is forced to masquerade as a woman after being castrated by a nymph; of Ileshwara, a god on full-moon days and a goddess on new-moon nights; and of Adi-natha, the teacher of teachers, worshipped as a hermit by some and as an enchantress by others.
Building on Hinduism’s rich and complex mythology-but driven by a very contemporary sensibility-Devdutt Pattanaik creates a lush and fecund work of fiction in which the lines are continually blurred between men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Confronted with such fluidity the reader is drawn into Yuvanashva’s struggle to be fair to all-those here, those there and all those in between.
Everyone has a dark, ugly side-some of us just choose to hide it better than others
She’s a young woman going through a mid-twenties crisis, trying to deal with the dark and intoxicating side of life with haunting memories of an abusive ex-boyfriend, remnants of a broken family and obvious mental health issues.
Finding herself on a consistent downward spiral, she tries to grapple with the harsh realities of her existence and her incessant attraction to all things that are bad for her, which ultimately culminate in the form of a medical emergency as she overdoses, leading to a blackout in the middle of a unfamiliar place, a very public meltdown and a broken leg.
With no job, a failing art career, months of expensive therapy, a cast on her leg and a mystery man in her life, will she be able to recover from her embarrassing wastefulness? Can she defeat her infamous trait of self-sabotage and manoeuvre her way through some hard-hitting truths?
The Manipuri writer Binodini’s Sahitya Akademi Award-winning historical novel The Princess and the Political Agent tells the love story of her aunt Princess Sanatombi and Lt. Col. Henry P. Maxwell, the British representative in the subjugated Tibeto-Burman kingdom of Manipur. A poignant story of love and fealty, treachery and valour, it is set in the midst of the imperialist intrigues of the British Raj, the glory of kings, warring princes, clever queens and loyal retainers. Reviving front-page global headlines of the day, Binodini’s perspective is from the vanquished by love and war, and the humbling of a proud kingdom. Its sorrows and empathy sparkle with wit and beauty, as it deftly dissects the build-up and aftermath of the perfidy of the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891. Binodini is the supreme stylist of contemporary Manipuri literature and an icon of Manipuri modernism, and her tale of a forbidden love and ostracism vividly brings to life the court and manners of a little-known Asian kingdom. In doing so, she recovers its little-known history, its untold relations with India and Great Britain, and a forgotten chapter of the British Raj.
Saratchandra Chattopadhyay is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Indian novelists of the twentieth century. His novels, serialized in periodicals and subsequently published in book form, earned Saratchandra immense fame in the early decades of the century, and established him as Bengal’s master storyteller. Even today, seven decades after his death, Saratchandra remains one of the most popular novelists in Bengal, and is widely read in translation across India as well. This collector’s edition of Saratchandra’s works in English translation brings together the writer’s most renowned and best-loved novels in two omnibus volumes. The first volume features five novels: Srikanta, Devdas, Parineeta, Palli Samaj and Nishkriti. Srikanta is the story of a wanderer who observes the people around him; through them- especially the women he loves and respects, from the sacrificing Annada Didi and the rebellious Abhaya to the housewife Rajlakshmi and the courtesan Pyari Bai- he tries to arrive at an understanding of life. Devdas, on the other hand, is the tragic tale of a man who drives himself to drink and debilitation when he is unable to marry his childhood sweetheart Paro. In Parineeta (Espoused), the orphaned Lalita is secretly in love with her guardian Shekhar, but circumstances conspire to drive the two apart. Palli Samaj (The Village Life) has Ramesh, an engineer, returning to the village of his birth to try and rid it of the backwardness that plagues it, even as he tries to revive his childhood ties with Rama, now a widow. In Nishkriti (Deliverance), the strong-willed Shailaja, the youngest daughter-in-law in a joint family, is made an outcast as a result of a misunderstanding; much later, her elders realize their mistake, just in time to save the family from disintegration. Each of the novels showcases the qualities Saratchandra is famous for: everyday stories told in a simple yet gripping style, strong characters, meticulous plotting, true-to-life dialogue, and unforgettable depictions of life in turn-of-the-century Bengal. Translated especially for Penguin, these classic novels will delight those new to Saratchandra’s works as well as those who want to return to them again.
For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise-to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies-and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India
This is an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe. They seek to rise-to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies. One is Jivan, a Muslim girl from the slums accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. The second is PT Sir, an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, only to find his own ascent linked to Jivan’s fall. And the third is Lovely, an irresistible outcast who has an alibi that can set Jivan free-but at the cost of everything she holds dear. Taut, symphonic, propulsive and riveting right from the outset, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed that it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance, at a breakneck pace, on complex themes that read as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice and what it feels like to face profound obstacles while nurturing big dreams in a country spinning towards extremism.
GUL HAS SPENT HER LIFE RUNNING. She has a star-shaped birthmark on her arm, and in the kingdom of Ambar, girls with such birthmarks have been disappearing for years. In fact, it is this very mark that caused her parents’ murder at the hand of King Lohar’s ruthless soldiers and forced her into hiding in order to protect her own life. So when a group of rebel women called the ‘Sisters of the Golden Lotus’ rescue her, take her in, and train her in warrior magic, Gul wants only one thing: revenge. Cavas lives in the tenements, and he’s just about ready to sign his life over to the king’s army. His father is terminally ill but Cavas will do anything to save him. Sparks fly when he meets a mysterious girl-Gul-in the capital’s bazaar. As the chemistry between them grows undeniably, he becomes entangled in a mission of vengeance and discovers a magic he never expected to find. Dangerous circumstances bring Gul and Cavas together at the king’s domain in Ambar Fort . . . a world with secrets deadlier than their own. Inspired by medieval India, this is the first in a stunning fantasy duology by Tanaz Bhathena, exploring identity, class struggles and high-stakes romance against a breathtaking magical backdrop.
What if we don’t know our own dark secret?
A year after the horrifying death of his fiancé Kashika, Kanav Raghuwanshi finds himself in therapy struggling to move on. Anahita, his therapist cum confidante, tries her best to help him, but when Kanav starts to see unmistakable signs of Kashika’s reappearance all over the city, coupled with an unoccupied neighbouring flat that is the source of all things mysterious, Kanav enters a battle between his imagination and reality.
Meanwhile, Meenakshi, Kanav’s new love interest, is all set to steal his heart, until Kanav discovers she’s not who she says she is. In fact, it seems no one is who they say they are. Perhaps not even Kanav himself.
Red Suits You is a short psychological thriller by Novoneel Chakraborty that promises to keep you pinned to the edge of your seat.
Books not Borders was a project undertaken in the year 2017 to bring together two cultures sundered by history and joined by an immense shared heritage. This is a heritage of pain and loss, but also one of a mutual emotional palette, the same passion for home and hearth and in the quiet places with ordinary people, a recognition of our mirrored identity. Literature has always been a space that finds common ground in that which was discrete, and this collection of Indian and Pakistani authors have come together to create a conversation of the ordinary people that constitute the hearts and minds of these two nations, in the hope that conversation brings understanding, and understanding plants the seed toward growing peace.
Born in 1891 into an untouchable family, Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is the acknowledged modern Indian leader of the struggle against social injustice. In this concise biography, eminent scholar Gail Omvedt presents the inspiring story of how Ambedkar got educated, overcame the stigma of untouchability and gradually rose to become a lawyer of international repute, a founder of a new order of Buddhism and a framer of India’s Constitution. She contextualizes Ambedkar’s argument with the elite nationalists, particularly Gandhi, that India could never be truly free without the liberation of its most oppressed sections.
Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India describes with empathy the lifelong efforts of a national leader whose thought remains key to understanding the paradoxes of twenty-first India.
‘Successfully demonstrates why Ambedkar has to be owned by every Indian’ Outlook
