In the cultural hub of 1880s’ Lahore Kay Robinson has taken over as editor of the Civil and Military Gazette. Assisting him is the young and impressionable Rudyard Kipling, a lonely, impulsive man who dreams of becoming a writer. Kipling’s literary pursuits have been dismissed as fanciful and foolish by his previous boss. But Robinson is different. He encourages the young ‘Ruddy’, allowing him greater creative freedom at the Gazette. As he becomes Ruddy’s friend and confidant, Robinson gains access to intimate glimpses of the Kipling family, where he is smitten by Ruddy’s sister Trix.
Narrated by Robinson, The Kipling File is a moving story of doomed friendship and difficult love recounted against the powerful backdrop of Anglo-Indian life in a Punjab that has begun to stir with anti-colonial sentiment. Through his eyes unfold the turmoils that shaped the author of beloved classics like The Jungle Book and Kim.
In Sudhir Kakar’s luminous prose, Kipling emerges as a man of compelling contradictions-a mercurial genius whose immense talent was in pitched battle with his inner demons.
In her bestselling novel Aftertaste (over 5000 hardback copies sold), Namita Devidayal provides a captivating account of a baniya family settled in Punjab headed by a matriarch, Mummyji, who is in hospital after a stroke. The Todarmal family, glued together by money not love, includes the weak and emasculated Rajan Papa who is desperately in need of cash; Sunny, the dynamic head of the business with an ugly marriage and a demanding mistress; Suman, the spoilt and greedy beauty of the family who is determined to get her hands on Mummyji’s best jewels; and Saroj, Suman’s unlucky sister, who has always lived in her shadow. Each one of them wants Mummyji to die
In a bustling town in Punjab before the Partition, a sickly but restless child longs to play with the neighbourhood youngsters. He is constantly thwarted by his mother’s anxious need to coddle him at home. When not being punished for using foul language, he is fighting with his siblings or being teased by the servant. As time passes and his curiosity of the wider world deepens, he discovers that his father is not invincible, that his long-held derision of girls vanishes with the first bloom of sexual longing and that the playground battles of old are no match for life’s cruelties.
Boyhood is a haunting portrait of the inescapable agonies and unfathomable desires of childhood by one of Hindi literature’s most towering luminaries.
‘An icon in Hindi literature’-The Hindu
The braid of young Basanti’s life thickens with time. Feisty and fearless, she plays hide and seek with her overbearing father, dodges the crippled old tailor whom she’s sold to and elopes with a handsome young man. Unwilling to let anyone suppress her spirit, she even rejects the benevolence of Shyama bibi, her confidante and employer.
With the thunderous clap of demolition of a basti in Delhi and a complex understanding of the confluence of classes, renowned writer Bhisham Sahni gives voice, laughter and resolve to a persona who might have otherwise coursed silently away through the veins of this megacity.
‘A key figure in Hindi literature’ Guardian
Magnificent in scope and intensely moving, Mansion spans the long years between the fall of the Khalsa regime and the turbulence of the British Raj. Innumerable characters populate these pages: from the wily Diwan Dhanpat Rai to the idealistic Lekhraj; from innocent Rukmo to outspoken Bhagsuddhi. Men and women shape their worlds, lose their grip and footholds, and become adrift in the fierce vortices of unforeseen events. But for the Diwan’s mansion itself, each event is only a passing moment in the town’s colourful history.
Ambitious and elegant, Mansion is a gripping tale about power: its arrogance and spectacle, and the many claimants and renouncers who desire or fear it.
She’s tall, beautiful and one of Bollywood’s leading ladies.
He’s goofy, loves to wear outlandish clothes and is constantly in trouble with reporters.
When Vicky Behl and Kritika Vadukut meet on the sets of the period drama Ranjha Ranjha, everyone agrees they have serious chemistry–and not just on screen. But after her devastating break-up with Raunak Rajput, Kritika doesn’t know if she can handle being with another Bollywood actor. If only Vicky wasn’t so damn charming . . .
As they dance to romantic numbers and spend time between takes on the glamorous sets of Sudarshana Samarth’s film, they find it hard not to give in to their attraction for each other. But will the pressure and scrutiny of Bollywood allow them a happy ending or will there be a twist in the tale?
From the Nobel Prize winner and bestselling author of Snow and My Name Is Red, a fable of fathers and sons and the desires that come between them.
On the outskirts of a town thirty miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before–not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world. But in the nearby town, where they buy provisions and take their evening break, the boy will find an irresistible diversion. The Red-Haired Woman, an alluring member of a travelling theatre company, catches his eye and seems as fascinated by him as he is by her. The young man’s wildest dream will be realized, but, when in his distraction a horrible accident befalls the well digger, the boy will flee, returning to Istanbul. Only years later will he discover whether he was in fact responsible for his master’s death and who the red-headed enchantress was.
A beguiling mystery tale of family and romance, of east and west, tradition and modernity, by one of the great storytellers of our time.
He was not himself because his wife was not herself, because in marriage you acted and reacted one upon the other, however much you wished it otherwise, and whether you wanted to or no.’ Dandekar is a routine-bound government clerk who is able to provide his family with a comfortable life. But his ordered existence is thrown off course when, one day, he comes home from work to find his wife, Sarojini, missing. On her return she gives him an excuse for her disappearance which he realizes is a lie, further rousing his suspicions. Doubt and mistrust plague him and he puts his career in jeopardy when he begins to trail Sarojini in the hope that he might find her with another man. But when he stumbles across the truth he gets more than he bargained for. In A Silence of Desire Kamala Markandaya explores the tension between the East and the West—between superstition and science, faith and reason, tradition and progress—in a profound manner.
He was the son of the fierce Durga and three-eyed Shiva. He was born, he lived, and he would die, if need be, for a divine purpose–to kill the Soul Stealer
Surapadma’s reign of terror flourishes and the fate of all creatures–mortal and immortal–hangs in the balance. Shiva’s son, Kartikeya, must destroy several formidable asuras before he can confront the Soul Stealer and savethe dying, gasping universe.
But Kartikeya, whisked away by mysterious forces to live amidst birds and beasts on a bleak mountainside, is ignorant of his destiny, and struggles to learn his identity. Not even the gods–Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva–come to his aid.
He can win the final battle only if he can discern his enemy’s weakness and his own inner strength.
Will Shiva’s son rise to the challenge before it is too late?
The world waits with bated breath. . .
From the highly acclaimed author of Atlas of Unknowns (“Dazzling . . . One of the most exciting debut novels since Zadie Smith’s White Teeth”—San Francisco Chronicle; “An astonishment of a debut”—Junot Díaz), a bravura collection of short stories set in locales as varied as London, Sierra Leone, and the American Midwest that captures the yearning and dislocation of young men and women around the world.
In “Lion and Panther in London,” a turn-of-the-century Indian wrestler arrives in London desperate to prove himself champion of the world, only to find the city mysteriously absent of challengers. In “Light & Luminous,” a gifted dance instructor falls victim to her own vanity when a student competition allows her a final encore. In “The Scriptological Review: A Last Letter from the Editor,” a young man obsessively studies his father’s handwriting in the hope of making sense of his death. And in the marvelous “What to Do with Henry,” a white woman from Ohio takes in the illegitimate child her husband left behind in Sierra Leone, as well as an orphaned chimpanzee who comes to anchor this strange new family.
With exuberance and compassion, Tania James once again draws us into the lives of damaged, driven, and beautifully complicated characters who quietly strive for human connection.
