24 books to add to your reading list in December 2023

The Federal brings to you a selection of this month’s releases you wouldn’t want to miss

Update: 2023-12-01 03:43 GMT
From fiction to non-fiction, from short stories to novels to memoirs and travelogues, this month's releases are an eclectic bunch.

1. Vazhga Vazhga and Other Stories by Imayam, translated by Prabha Sridevan (Penguin Random House): Imayam, one of the best-known Tamil writers — like Perumal Murugan, whose books dominated the buzz around books this year, from London to Delhi — is out with a collection of stories. This is his second book in translation this year; in September, his novel, A Woman Burnt, translated by GJV Prasad, was published by Simon & Schuster. The stories in Vazhga Vazhga reflect Imayam’s preoccupations as a writer: from questioning political morality and exploring whether religion unites or divides to the inequalities that people in the country are condemned to live with and navigate on a daily basis.



14. Gendered Publics:_C. Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samiti in Colonial Assam by Hemjyoti Medhi (Oxford University Press): It’s a comprehensive account of the forgotten histories of the highly impactful women’s association, the Assam Mahila Samiti, and the life and times of its founding secretary Chandraprava Saikiani, who was a celebrated writer, mobilizer, and publisher, despite being an unwed mother and belonging to a ‘lower' caste. The book dwells on the individual and collective journeys of Saikiani and the mahila samitis from the 1920s to the 1950s in conversation with parallel tribal-caste and literary associations, anti-colonial movements and international ideological paradigms such as the Bolshevik revolution.

15. Hot Stage by Anita Nair (HarperCollins): The latest instalment of Anita Nair’s urban crime thriller in the Inspector Gowda series, a police procedural, is set in Bangalore. Like the first two novels in the series, it is an intense exploration of a man and a city that exists on multiple levels. When elderly Professor Mudgood, a well-known rationalist and fervent critic of right-wing forces in India, is found dead in his home in Bangalore by his daughter, ACP Borei Gowda is quite certain that it is a homicide although all evidence points to the murder being politically motivated. As he and his team launch a parallel investigation, they stumble upon a secret and murky world where there are no rules or mercy.

16. Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir by Chitralekha Zutshi (HarperCollins): The the second book in the Indian Lives series, edited and curated by Ramachandra Guha, it tells the story of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah (1905-82), one of the best-known and most controversial political figures of twentieth-century South Asia. A fierce Kashmiri nationalist, Abdullah is best remembered for securing J&K’s accession to India in 1947, and later for championing the cause of Kashmiri self-determination. Zutshi places Abdullah’s life in the context of global developments in the twentieth century. She illustrates how his political trajectory — forged in the inequities of the princely state system and burnished in the flames of anti-colonial nationalism, Islamic universalism, socialism, communism, secularism, communalism, federalism and the Cold War — embodies the becoming of India itself.

17. The Yellow Sparrow: Memoir of a Transgender by Santa Khurai (Speaking Tiger): This is the story of a prominent LGBTQ activist of Manipur. Santa Khurai was 17 when she decided to start dressing like a woman. Born male, she had always believed herself to be female. Her bold act of wearing dresses and make-up in public brought down upon her the wrath of her father, insults and ridicule wherever she went, and, frequently, beatings at the hands of the armed forces who are a constant presence in her native Manipur. She paid a high price: No one would employ her because of the way she looked. When she eventually found success as a make-up artist, with her own beauty parlour, the stress of her struggles sent her spiralling into drug abuse and penury. But she fought. And won.

18. Zeba : An Accidental Superhero by Huma S Qureshi (HarperCollins): The Bollywood actor’s first work of fiction — a tale of heroism and transformation — it tells the story of Zeba, a sassy superhero with an unusual choice for a cape, whose cushy life takes an unexpected turn when she travels to the distant land of Khudir and discovers the source of her superpowers — the holy spring Zsa Zsa — and it falls on her (against her best instincts) to save the world she loves from the clutches of The Great Khan, a cruel tyrant with the most evil intentions. Can she vanquish her inner demons while she prepares for the fight of her life — a fight to save not just her family but the whole world? 


20. City on Fire : A Boyhood in Aligarh by Zeyad Masroor Khan (HarperCollins India): In this visceral portrait of how everyday violence and hate become a part of our lives and consciousness, Zeyad Masroor Khan examines religion and violence, imagined histories and fractured realities, grief and love in today’s India; the book is also a paean to the hope of continued unity, to an idea of India. Khan was four years old when he realized that an innocent act of clicking a switch near a window overlooking the street could trigger a riot. He writes about the undercurrents of religious violence and the ensuing ‘othering’ that followed him everywhere he went: from his school days in Aligarh, through his years as a college student in Delhi, to ultimately becoming a journalist documenting the history of his country as it happened.

21. Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers by Sharmistha Mukherjee (Rupa Publications): Written by the daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee, who served as India’s External Affairs, Defence, Finance and Commerce Minister at different times, it celebrates a special father–daughter relationship. She writes about hitherto unknown facets of Pranab’s political life — his unfulfilled ambition of becoming India’s prime minister arising out of his inability to emerge as the ‘number one person’ to earn Sonia’s trust, the personality cult around the Nehru–Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi’s ‘lack of charisma’ and political understanding, and his advice to PM Modi to acknowledge the contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

22. The Collected Stories of Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (Aleph) Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury Translated by Lopamudra Maitra (Aleph): It is a selection of 63 stories by Bengali writer Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (1863–1915), featuring a vibrant cast of characters — eccentric woodland animals, a motley crew of unusual villagers and townspeople, bewildering ghosts, competitive demons, and gods from Norway and Japan. ‘Tuntunir Boi’, the first book in the collection, has 27 stories. These include adventure yarns of the author’s most popular characters like the mischievous tailor bird Tuntuni, the crafty fox Sheyal, the arrogant feline Mawjontali Sarkar, and the fearless farmer Buddhu’s Baap. The second book, ‘Golpomala’, includes some beloved gems — stories of Gupi the singer and Bagha the instrumentalist; of Ghyanghashur, a half-bird, half-beast; of the Japanese gods Izanagi and Izanami; and of a sailor’s extraordinary sea voyage.

23. The Grammar of My Body: A Memoir by Abhishek Anicca (Penguin): Subverting an ableist India’s expectations from a disabled person to be ‘inspirational’ and an ‘underdog who made it’ despite their illness, Abhishek Anicca writes about everyday stories of living with disability and chronic illness in this memoir-in-essays. His essays on the self, questions of care and dignity, dating and navigating desire as a queer-disabled man, self-hatred, moving about with a crutch, chronic pain and shame, the chilling lack of representation in the media and reflections on nearing death are sparse but compelling. Conversational and informal, truthful and unflinching, Anicca’s wry and urgent essays compel the reader to become at once distant from and proximate to their inner experiences.

24. ULFA: The Mirage of Dawn by Rajeev Bhattacharyya (HarperCollins): Cross-border connections make the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) unique in the annals of insurgency in India, second only to the LTTE in South Asia in terms of how vast the international network created to sustain its separatist campaign is — from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and China. ULFA: The Mirage of Dawn is the never-before-told story of the outlawed separatist outfit from its inception in the early 1980s to the present, when peace is being negotiated between a faction led by Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and the Indian government. It delves into all the major episodes, delineates their causes and effects, and debunks interpretations about the movement that have gained currency over the years.

(Compiled by Nawaid Anjum. Book details have been culled from the notes provided to The Federal by the publishers) 

Tags:    

Similar News