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The Bulgarian-American translator on patriarchy, working on Rene Karabash’s She Who Remains,  and on creating space for works in her native language

Izidora Angel: “There’s a fine line between idiom and cliché”

This week’s pick of interesting reads includes an anthology in support of Palestine, a tenth-century collection of Jain stories about 19 warrior saints who embrace death in pursuit of enlightenment, and a volume on Bangladesh

HT Picks; New Reads

The author of The World Was Not Their Story; Odyssey of an Indian Reporter on six decades of war reporting and on the link between India’s foreign environment and its internal political dynamics

Saeed Naqvi: “Our elites look at the world from a Western perspective”

Set within Delhi’s affluent circles, Moms by Shivani Sibal follows Radhika Khanna, whose life is organised around marriage, motherhood, and the demands of maintaining a particular social identity

Review: Moms by Shivani Sibal

An erudite work that looks at how misinformation and fake news are purveyed and amplified on social media and closed platforms like Whatsapp

Review: Forwarded as Received by Saadia Azim

The OCO Symposium 2026 held in Bhubaneshwar brought together academics and artists who discussed Odisha’s traditional applique art form and the need to appreciate art, craft and labour

The charm of Chandua

The novel, which won this year’s Godrej Literature Live! Book of the Year award for fiction, stands out for the acuity with which it renders the interiority of the woman protagonist

Review: Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya

The 2026 International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of ‘She Who Remains’ on channelling the colour blue, and leveraging &nbsp;writing and cinema to tell stories

Rene Karabash: “A voice appeared out of nowhere and wanted to tell this story”

At Soneva Fushi, guests browse barefoot, books arrive by tuk-tuk, and the resident bookseller matches holidaymakers with their next beach read

Barefoot and browsing: Inside a bookshop in the Maldives

The historian and co-author of the graphic novel, When We Are Strangers, on the friendship between the two non-violent anticolonial leaders, the repatriation of stolen antiquities, and the need to decolonize the museum

Vazira Zamindar: “Photos of Gandhi and Bacha Khan together have always moved me”

Ten readers gather to read Anne Carson’s The Glass Essay, and discover that a difficult poem can open up conversations about mothers, heartbreak and coping.

Book Box: Reading Nobel Winner Anne Carson in the Kullu Valley

On the reading list this week is a look at the experience of modern parenthood, a rich exploration of Himalayan culture, spirituality, ecology and ethnography, and a history of the Dalit Panther

The author of Land of the Eastern Light on Assam’s pre-Ahom history, and why it is important to move beyond Delhi-centric and colonial ways of seeing the Northeast

Nabaarun Barooah: ‘We can never reconstruct the past perfectly’

Translated by Sirus J Libeiro, the stories in this collection examine dichotomies and strike a fine balance between the said and unsaid

Review: The Seekers by Gautamiputra Kamble

Set during the nonviolent anti-colonial Khudai Khidmatgar movement, this graphic novel is an appeal to overcome divisiveness

Review: When We Are Strangers by Vazira Zamindar and Sarnath Banerjee

Prasad on translation as interpretation, and how a text often means different things to different people

GJV Prasad: “Each of us is a translator, but we don’t know it”

From artist projectionists to transferred memories and the intersection of caste and class through time travel, The IF Anthology of New Indian SFF Vol 1 bodes well for the future of the genre in the country

Review: Between Worlds, edited by Gautam Bhatia

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026, the novel set in Jamaica, explores the aftermath of a brutal homophobic attack

Review: The Disappearers by Marlon James

The author of Stories the Fire Could Not Burn; A Personal Account of the Manipur Crisis (2023–25) on the conflict in the state that has seen much violence, bloodshed and displacement

Hoihnu Hauzel: “Home is supposed to be the safest place”

The screenwriter of such films as Cheeni Kum and Manorama Six Feet Under and director of Bharat Bhagya Vidhata on his creative process

Manoj Tapadia: “No director can make a good film out of a bad screenplay”

On the reading list, a book on a family shaped by bipolar disorder, another on a classical dance, and one on the desires of Indians

Saurabh Sharma discusses a 1990s Hyderabad novel exploring memory, gender, class, queerness and the cost of defying social expectations.

Ruthvika Rao: “I find myself drawn to contradictions”

Translated from the Urdu by Daisy Rockwell, this is an unsettling prose poem obsessed with interiority and cosmic anxiety

Review: Sleep Journeys byAzra Abbas

A vivid account of one of the longest rescue operations in India, this is also an indictment of our treatment of the environment and of migrant workers

Review: Operation Silkyara by Saurabh Sharma

On Meghalaya’s state-backed OTT platform that has built a huge following while also creating opportunities for young creators

Hello Meghalaya: hyperlocal and highly successful

From musical storytelling performances to a classical Sanskrit play and a reimagination of a Shakespearean one, the event was a treat

Report: Remembering Veenapani Festival 2026

In The Haunting of Dr Shamsi, the supernatural is not an intruder; it has been living in the house all along

Ayesha Muzaffar: “A jinn is almost comforting compared with devilish humans”

The Booker shortlisted novel explores the conditions in which people misread each other and allow public appearances to stand in for understanding

Review: The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

The author’s latest novel is an ingenious story about fame, performance and a writer’s right to imagine another person from the inside

Review: Life of M by Rachel Cusk

The author of ‘What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea’ on censorship, giving voice to the powerless and the fight for free speech

Faramerz Dabhoiwala: “We can’t seem to agree on free speech at all”

Latest Books - Find the detailed information about Books and their Author name. Also find Most Popular Books in India and the World at Hindustan times.

Translator of Rene Karabash’s *She Who Remains* says translating it meant preserving Bulgarian texture, silences and gender ambiguity rather than smoothing them for Anglophone readers. Her Bulgarian roots shaped an immersive approach; an excerpt won the Gulf Coast Prize, and the novel’s International Booker nomination, she hopes, will create wider opportunities for Bulgarian literature.

For Gaza turns art into resistance, bearing witness to Gaza’s live-streamed devastation and holding power, complicity and silence to account. Edited by Jeet Thayil and Pascalle Burton, the anthology gathers contributors in poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, photography and music, including artists on the ground. It restores Gaza’s stories, memories and dreams beyond headlines, advocating justice.

Veteran correspondent says India’s foreign-policy establishment and media must escape colonial-era reliance on Western perspectives that shape coverage and elite thinking. This outlook obscures historic ties with West Asia and fuels suspicion of independent reporting, while foreign conflicts remain linked to domestic politics. His conclusions draw on six decades of reporting from over 100 countries.

Shivani Sibal’s *Moms* explores how class and social expectations shape private distress in affluent Delhi, following Radhika Khanna as marriage, motherhood and status define her world. After her death, the narrative shifts to Manik and family memories, exposing unequal relationships while questioning whether elite unhappiness is situated within material privilege, through Bourdieu’s theory of distinction.

Social platforms, especially WhatsApp, spread misinformation and deliberate disinformation, fueling prejudice, riots and mob violence in India as algorithms intensify polarization. Saadia Azim’s *Forwarded as Received* documents the damage and calls for platform accountability, transparent regulation, school-based digital literacy and a public habit of pausing to verify before forwarding. WhatsApp’s intimacy magnifies its reach worldwide.

At Odisha Craft Odyssey’s 2026 symposium in Bhubaneswar, artists, artisans and leaders called for recognition of Chandua applique, visibility for labour, and sustainable support bridging art, craft and anthropology. Discussions examined community knowledge, ethical research, adaptation and institutional responsibility; a book documented regional variation, while speakers noted no applique artisan has won a national award.

Railsong follows Charu Chittol’s pursuit of autonomy, from fleeing home at sixteen to railway work and marriage amid political change. She resists constraints, even when indistinct, embodying a compelling modern Indian woman. Across decades in a fictional Bihar railway town, Bhattacharya offers an intimate portrait of female interiority, echoing Mary Oliver’s summons to freedom.

In *She Who Remains*, a woman becomes an Albanian “sworn virgin” to escape forced marriage, gaining men’s rights while sacrificing her own freedom and life. The novel explores survival, gendered power, family betrayal and forgiveness under the Kanun; blue and red signify opposing energies. Pepa Hristova’s photographs inspired its intuitive, cinematic style and cross-media adaptations.

Soneva Fushi’s Barefoot Bookshop in the Maldives brings curated holiday reading to guests, with booksellers matching titles to visitors’ moods and a roaming Book Tuk delivering books around the island. Beyond sales, the bookshop hosts events and encourages screen-free relaxation. Opened in 2018 with Ultimate Library, it later inspired a sister shop at Soneva Jani.

Historian Vazira Zamindar says her graphic novel puts Gandhi and Bacha Khan’s friendship, nonviolence and “love-force” at the heart of a shared anticolonial inheritance that can challenge histories in India and Pakistan. Through Mahmud and Sita, it links courage with political leadership, colonial image-making and Partition, drawing on Zamindar’s research and collaboration with Sarnath Banerjee.

Ten readers in Kullu Valley gathered around Anne Carson’s *The Glass Essay*, finding its meditation on heartbreak, grief and solitude opened space to share lives. Reading aloud sparked reflections on mothers, family habits and Emily Brontë, while coffee and conversation carried them through three hours. Ultimately, unresolved questions mattered less than the connection they forged.

Basu’s humorous account of motherhood explores raising two half-Indian daughters from toddlerhood as they approach school age, confronting postpartum depression, anxiety, panic and inherited family habits. Alongside vulnerable reflections, she shares comic strategies for everyday parenting—from managing children’s artwork to defusing sibling fights—making her musings resonate with parents, children and anyone shaped by family life.

The author’s *Land of the Eastern Light* challenges the idea that Assam’s history began with the Ahoms, recovering kingdoms and links to Indian civilisation. Drawing on inscriptions, chronicles, sites and oral traditions, he highlights Bhaskaravarman and revisits Kamakhya and Bakhtiyar Khilji’s defeat, arguing colonial and regionalist narratives obscured Assam’s past and cast it as peripheral.

Kamble’s *The Seekers*, translated from Marathi by Sirius J Libeiro, follows quests for people, words, histories, knowledge and freedom to challenge social and religious hierarchies and received wisdom. Its unresolved endings invite reflection on silence, identity, fear and the unknown. First published as *Parivrajak* in 2004, the collection blends Buddhist thought with myth and metaphor.

When We Are Strangers, by historian Vazira Zamindar and artist Sarnath Banerjee, turns a Buddha-statue heist into an appeal for anti-colonial solidarity and unity today. Set during the Khudai Khidmatgar movement, it depicts the Qissa Khwani massacre and friendship between Bacha Khan and Gandhi. Collage art and archival material enrich this call to resist division.

Saurabh Sharma says a rendering of Salma’s *The Dark Hours of the Night* brings the novel closer to Indian readers than its earlier, British-inflected translation while preserving Tamil cultural resonance. They view translation as interpretation rather than replication, shaped by readers’ experiences and India’s languages, and urge publishers to look beyond English despite acceptance of translation.

*Between Worlds, The IF Anthology of New Indian SFF* presents diverse speculative fiction connecting India’s histories, social realities and imagined futures, with memory recurring as a unifying thread. Its peer-reviewed stories range from colonial-era projection and caste to robots, time travel and interplanetary life. The collection also signals a growing Indian SFF scene long overshadowed by Western canon.

Marlon James’s *The Disappearers* follows survivors searching for missing castmates after a homophobic attack derails a 1988 Kingston production of *Fortune and Men’s Eyes*, giving voice to queer lives erased by violence. Through journals, testimony and Jamaican cultural detail, the novel evokes AIDS-era disappearance and media cruelty; despite weak momentum, its haunting portrait makes silenced afterlives audible.

In *Stories the Fire Could Not Burn*, a Kuki-Zo writer uses her family’s loss of Imphal home to illuminate the humanitarian crisis unleashed by Manipur’s 2023–25 ethnic violence, which killed people and displaced thousands. She recounts escape, grief from afar and unequal state support, while recognizing enduring community ties. Longstanding hill-valley neglect underlies the conflict.

The screenwriter and filmmaker defines success as gripping audiences and leaving them thinking, a goal that guides his writing, directing and advertising. His latest film, *Bharat Bhagya Vidhata*, grew from a newspaper report, underwent 100 drafts and took seven years to mount. Advertising and *Cheeni Kum* shaped his craft; childhood loss led him toward books and poetry.

Three books explore inheritance, cultural change and intimacy amid India’s shifting social norms. Shubha’s memoir, *Traitor in the House*, follows generations shaped by bipolar disorder and her journey from caregiving to diagnosis and resilience. Justin McCarthy recovers Bharatanatyam’s overlooked hereditary dancers, while Aili Seghetti examines how dating apps expose men’s loneliness, desire and failures of empathy.

Writer Saurabh Sharma says the novel uses an abandoned Hyderabad bungalow, family secrets and imperfect memory to examine how gender, class, caste and social expectations shape lives, with women paying especially harsh costs for independence. Through teenagers Arjun and Priya, and figures including Ganesh and Gita Miss, it explores love, education and inequality in 1990s India.

Azra Abbas’s surreal prose poem *Sleep Journeys*, translated from Urdu by Daisy Rockwell, brings experimental Urdu poetry to English readers bilingually. Rejecting the ghazal’s conventions, the 1981 work unfolds through dreamlike images, religious anxiety, violence and ecological unease, demanding sensation rather than linear interpretation. Abbas’s afterwords and Rockwell’s reflections illuminate its creation and translation.

Sourabh Sharma’s *Operation Silkyara* recounts the 17-day rescue of 41 workers trapped after a Uttarakhand tunnel collapsed in November 2023, combining ground reportage with an indictment of unsafe infrastructure and migrant labour’s vulnerability. It follows the men, rescuers and families through fear and endurance, while tracing ecological warnings, construction haste and the need for safeguards.

Meghalaya’s Hello Meghalaya OTT platform is elevating Khasi, Garo and Pnar stories, with nearly 600,000 downloads, 20,000 users and more than 380 creators. Free publishing, grants, tourism incentives and event broadcasts support talent and jobs, while award-winning films demonstrate that regional stories can travel nationally and globally amid growing audience demand for culturally rooted media.

Adishakti’s 12th Remembering Veenapani Festival, held near Auroville from April 12–26, brought nine performances and a documentary series together under founder Veenapani Chawla’s belief that “anything and everything is theatre.” Music, dance, plays and films explored mentorship, ecology, caste, gender and tradition; the free festival offered a sanctuary, affirming theatre’s inclusive roots and live performance’s power.

An unexplained sixth finger on rational dentist Dr Shamsi anchors a writer’s South Asian horror, where science and the unseen coexist, and the impossible most frightens those who reject it. The stories blend grief, domestic pressures, jinn and folklore with 1990s Lahore and Karachi, distinguishing Islamic belief from cultural superstition and showing fear crosses class lines.

Elizabeth Strout’s novel follows teacher Artie Dam, whose question—why people never say anything real?—exposes silence around him. The article links his experience to pluralistic ignorance: private doubts masquerade as consensus, especially amid political division and post-pandemic anxiety. His family ties show intimacy cannot ensure understanding, while the story asks what makes honesty possible.

Rachel Cusk’s slim, unsettling *Life of M* examines how celebrity visibility becomes captivity, as an unnamed writer turns a famous actor into material for an imagined autobiography, confusing interpretation with truth. M’s Portman parallels sharpen its critique of public ownership; the narrator’s admission exposes her motives. Cusk’s experimental novel probes writing, identity and motherhood.

Free speech is a powerful, incoherent idea, celebrated as a universal right yet endlessly contested and weaponised, the author argues. It can silence dissidents and enable demagoguery, but also empower the oppressed and advance change. From print to social media, shifting technologies have complicated its boundaries, while the book traces these tensions through history.