Why Shashi Tharoor’s satirical 1989 masterpiece The Great Indian Novel—which married India’s recent history with The Mahabharata—is as relevant as ever in today’s polarising times. - by Atulya Pathak

Writer, translator, and editor Aruni Kashyap discusses his remarkable short-story collection His Father’s Disease, building the shaky bridge from Assam to Delhi to America, and the indissoluble bond between the personal and the political in literature.- by Karan Madhok.

In his urgent and timely novel The Machine is Learning (2020), Tanuj Solanki confronts the rise of artificial intelligence with the complexities of 21st century humanity - by Kiran Bhat.

In Bitter Chocolate (2000), Pinki Virani turned the spotlight on the extent of child sexual abuse in India, and the possible ways forward to address the challenges with this issue. - By Nikita Chatterjee

Megha Majumdar’s debut novel A Burning is a study in media and myth-making, of an India that is no longer an imagined community with the same news-reading rituals, but a collection of nations, each with their own interpretation of reality - by Kanika Jain.

Over the decade, a number of literary giants have emerged from Bengaluru—including Vivek Shanbagh, Madhuri Vijay, and more—to garner worldwide critically acclaim. Kamalpreet Singh Gill argues that the trend is a sign of the country’s ‘Silicon Valley’ evolving into the new heartbeat of Indian literature.

In her captivating debut novel A Burning, Megha Majumdar reports on the searing flames that ignite the ambitions of aspiring Indians—or destroy them. Review by Karan Madhok.

From Bandarpunch and Nanda Devi to the Annapurna and more, Zachary Conrad recommends five must-read books for a better understanding of the mountains we seek to scale—beyond us, and within us.

The nihilistic poetry collection Black Verses (2018) by Sarvesh Wahie offers a call for pure meditation, of accepting oneself in a vacuum. Review by Karan Madhok.

In the comparisons between Sita and Draupadi, Urmi Bhattacheryya argues how the trope of ‘the other woman’ has hurt feminism in Indian mythology.

With the Ramayan and Mahabharat back on TV, Karan Madhok writes about the importance of celebrating the complex fictions of the myths, rather than accepting them as gospel truth.

A short film from Mussoorie Writers, featuring Arvind Mehrotra reading from his 2011 translation of Songs of Kabir.