I have to admit that I had never heard of Indian graphic novels (just not on my radar, even though I have a heavy South Asian diasporic literary bent because...
Well, no wonder why I hadn't heard of Indian graphic novels until discovering Sarnath Banerjee! I wasn't alone as his debut title, Corridor, was widely marketed as Indian's first graphic novel! Although, that's apparently incorrect information...
Tarun Tejpal's debut novel, The Alchemy of Desire, begins and ends with the same words - but with a completely different meaning by book's end. Over the course of 518 pages, an unnamed writer takes a...
In one of the first of numerous books about the devastating December 2004 tsunami that claimed over 280,000 lives, a courageous dog saves a frightened young boy from certain death. Based on a true story, this...
Loss dominates the lives of the inhabitants of a crumbling, stately home on the Indian-Nepali border along the Himalayas. The Cambridge University-educated, self-hating judge’s isolated life is disrupted by the arrival of his young granddaughter, Sai,...
The turbulent mother-daughter relationship between world-renowned filmmaker Deepa Mehta and her photographer/journalist daughter is interwoven into a fascinating account of how Mehta’s latest film, Water, came to be. As the final installment of Mehta’s...
If you’ve got half an hour, you’ve got a meal. Now hurry up and feed me!
Review: "New and Notable Books," AsianWeek, November 3, 2005
Readers: Adult
Published: 2005...
In spite of its devastating moments, this is one fabulous novel about a billion-rupee quiz show winner, a lá Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, who is unjustly arrested for cheating. Rescued from being further tortured,...
Got the publication date confused and held it longer than intended – but can’t let it go without saying this is a grand coming-of-age story. Jazz Gardner travels to India with her family where...
Gorgeous pages with ingredient lists so short that you might actually start believing that “simple” is not a misnomer!
Review: "New and Notable Books," AsianWeek, August 4, 2005
Readers: Adult
Published: 2005...
Here the connecting thread is that of place: a changing, bustling Bangalore at the core of fabulous stories about a man who falls in love too late with the wrong woman, an old man...
Put away the car keys and get out the chopping chopping board. Often referred to as “the national food of England,” (colonial history aside) this is curry in a hurry...
Thirteen leftover travelers from a 323-passenger cancelled flight to Tokyo are left stranded overnight at the airport. They pass the time by each sharing a story – haunting, surprising, delicious, tales that span time...
Ooh, what a fabulous find! An incredibly unique compilation of things Indian, designed and made in a globalized modern India, from plastic cups to electric lights to candy boxes to telephones to even specialty...
A colorful, fun, amazing read displaying everyday lives of children from all over India as they go to school — on a mountaintop, outside under a mango tree,...
Amitava Kumar, a Hindu Indian writer based in the United States, marries a Pakistani Muslim in 1999 when India and Pakistan are at war: “I felt good about...
Call me old, but who really wants to read about a promiscuous 16-year-old school girl who uses her so-called charm to seduce an older divorcée, her societal power to seduce her servant, and her academic prowess...
Novelist and essayist (and frequent New York Review of Books contributor) Mishra adds to what seems to be a growing hybrid genre of memoir infused with history, philosophy, and politics. What begins...
This is one of those perfect little books that fit right in your pocket, to whip out when you have a few minutes to daydream. This slim volume offers bite-size portions of...
From the screenwriter of such award-winning films as Mississippi Masala and Salaam Bombay! comes a stunning portrait of a rapidly shrinking community, the Parsis who number just 100,000 today. Followers of Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s...
