Ritam Dutta — Excerpt: The novel’s prose, as rendered in English by Manikuntala Dasgupta, carries the scent of its soil. Her translation has a rare transparency—it does not attempt to embellish but allows the natural music of the original to flow through.
Anjana Basu — Excerpt: Unlike Ruskin Bond, Roy’s love of the hills is not unqualified. She sees the monsoons as a season of stoicism — life in the hills, in fact, despite the wild beauty all around demands a certain acceptance from all those who live there.
Michael Smith — Excerpt: The fog had lifted and we found ourselves residing in an example of Soviet architectural chic, a massive 22-storey, 168-roomed block of flats that had been converted into a hotel.
Panchami — Excerpt: What began as reading ‘about’ the region transcended into reading ‘from’ the region. Shafak’s work was a beacon, my entry into literature from West Asia.
Jonaki Ray — Excerpt: Girls Who Stray has an edge to it, a raw honesty in the depiction of the central character that makes it distinct.