New books on the shelves

This first ever anthology of Sri Lankan and diasporic poetry, the memoir of a communist leader, and much more.

Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English poetry from Sri Lanka and its diasporas

Edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne & Shash Trevett

Penguin India

Rs. 599

This anthology, consisting of Tamil, Sinhala and English poetry from Sri Lanka and its diasporas, brings together, for the first time, Sri Lankan and diasporic poetry written during and after the island nation’s independence. With the poems exploring crucial events in Sri Lanka’s history, the book resists amnesia and challenges those who seek to erase atrocities.

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Chronicle of an Hour and a Half 

Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari 

Context

Rs.599

In the foothills of the Western Ghats, the village of Vaiga is in the middle of a natural calamity, the devastating impact of which is soon eclipsed by turmoil over an illicit affair. Drummed up by feverish WhatsApp messages, the rumour takes on epic proportions, hurtling the village towards chaos as a mob takes to the streets, baying for blood.

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In That Mill, I Too Was Forged: Poems

Narayan Surve, translated by Jerry Pinto

Speaking Tiger

Rs.450

Narayan Gangaram Surve (1926-2010) was a celebrated revolutionary poet with an abiding allegiance to the workers’ movement. His poetry, written in Marathi spoken on the streets, bristles with urgency as it appeals to the masses to rise against oppression.

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The Saffron Storm: From Vajpayee to Modi

Saba Naqvi

Vintage Books

Rs.499

The veteran journalist Saba Naqvi has spent a quarter century covering the Bharatiya Janata Party. This updated edition of her Shades of Saffron, first published in 2018, includes the enforcement agencies’ action against the party’s opponents, the increasingly centralised command structure of the BJP and the implications of the delimitation exercise due in 2026.

Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu–Muslim Friendship After Empire

Sherali Tareen

Permanent Black

Rs. 795

An exploration of how leading South Asian Muslim scholars imagined and contested the possibilities and dangers of Hindu–Muslim friendship from the mid-18th to the mid-20th century.

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An Education for Rita: A Memoir, 1975-1985

Brinda Karat

LeftWord Books

Rs.325

The real-life story of how a young woman of privilege, who gave up an airline job in London to join the communist party in India, went on to discover the harsh realities of the urban working class in the industrial areas and the bastis of Delhi, and learned to organise to fight for a better world.

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Fiction

Melancholy I-II 

Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls and Grethe Kvernes 

Fitzcarraldo Editions 

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Blues in the Blood 

Julien Delmaire, translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan 

Seagull Books 

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A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth: Stories 

Daniel Mason 

Back Bay Books 

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Solenoid 

Mircea Cartarescu, translated by Sean Cotter 

Deep Vellum Publishing 

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Non-fiction

From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine

Edited by Sai Englert, Michal Schatz, and Rosie Warren

Verso Books

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Pious Labor: Islam, Artisanship, and Technology in Colonial India

Amanda Lanzillo

University of California Press

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Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

Kyle Chayka

Penguin Random House

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Digital Expressions of the Self(ie): The Social Life of Selfies in India

Avishek Ray, Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan, Usha Raman, Martin Web, Neha Gupta, Sai Amulya Komarraju, Anuja Premika, Riad Azam, Farhat Salim, Pranavesh Subramanian

Routledge