by Mukund Belliappa

The Dog of Tithwal – Saadat Hasan Manto

by

Manto is an outlier, a freakish occurrence at a freakish time in South Asia.

The City of Good Death – Priyanka Champaneri

by

The modern novel feeds almost entirely on free will — a compelling demonstration of the full and rebellious exercise of which, if we are to agree with (among others) Camus, is what separates the literary novel from myth, legend, parable, and genre writing.

Max Havelaar or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company – Multatuli

by

No anti-colonial tract more effectively debunked the, by then, three-century-old system which—tweaked and window-dressed to pacify the progressives of each generation—had enriched Europe while shredding colonized societies everywhere.

Fog – Miguel de Unamuno

by

When we die, we all become fictional characters.

This Divided Island – Samanth Subramanian

by

Divided Island, then, is a post-war book, which tries to saturate its pages with the atmosphere of war.