New books on the shelves

An award-winning Punjabi novel in translation, and the memoirs of two of India’s finest social activists, and more.

White Blood

Nanak Singh, translated by Dilraj Singh Suri

Hachette India

Rs.499

This novel with nested narratives peels away layers of reality to reveal the moral rot at the heart of 20th century Punjab. Sahitya Akademi‐awardee Nanak Singh, who pioneered the novel form in Punjabi, is known for his hard-hitting depiction of everyday life. White Blood is an unsparing portrait of a diseased, corrupt, and casteist society.

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The Midnight Feast

Lucy Foley

HarperCollins

Rs.499

In this murder mystery set in the Dorset coast of England, guests gather for the opening weekend of a new countryside retreat. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Then a 15-year-old secret gatecrashes the party, resulting in murder.

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Take No. 2020

Puneet Sikka

Ebury Press

Rs.350

With a cast of Bollywood wannabes, an aspiring TikTok star, and a master of the casting couch tainted with #MeToo allegations, Take No. 2020 tells a story of lost and found projects, broken and unexpected relationships, and repressed secrets that resurface.

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India’s Forgotten Country: A View from the Margins

Bela Bhatia

Penguin RandomHouse

Rs.1,299

India’s Forgotten Country captures Bela Bhatia’s early years as an activist in rural Gujarat, her research on the Naxalite movement, her investigations of violations of democratic rights in different regions, and her recent years dealing with the ongoing conflict between the state and Maoists in Bastar. These are stories of life, death, and despair, but also resistance, resilience, courage, and hope.

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The Personal is Political:An Activist’s Memoir

Aruna Roy

HarperCollins

Rs.599

The Magsaysay Award-winning social activist Aruna Roy has lived with and worked for the benefit of marginalised communities in rural India for over 50 years. In her memoir, which recounts her experience of organising mass-based grassroot social movements along with extraordinary stories of resilient individuals and communities, she shows that it is only by connecting the personal and the political that each one of us can make a difference.

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Translating Kerala: The Cultural Turn in Translation Studies

Meena T. Pillai

Orient BlackSwan

Rs.500

Translating Kerala looks at translation as a social and cultural act that transcribes, articulates and interprets structures of power within asymmetrical fields of cultural politics. The chapters in this book focus on texts as varied as the Malayalam translation of Les Misérables, the autobiographies of C. K. Janu and Nalini Jameela, and Ramu Kariat’s cinematic adaptation of Chemmeen, and tries to destabilise the hierarchies between texts and their ‘afterlives’, texts and their contexts, and texts and their subjects.

Fiction

A Dictator Calls

Ismail Kadare, translated by John Hodgson

Harvill Secker

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The Missing Lover

Summer Brenner

Spuyten Duyvil

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The House on Via Gemito

Domenico Starnone, translated by Oonagh Stransky

Europa Editions Inc

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8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster

Mirinae Lee

Virago

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Non fiction

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine

Nada Elia

Pluto Press

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Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat

Hannah Proctor

Verso Books

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One Garden Against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate

Kate Bradbury

Bloomsbury

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The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice

Elizabeth Flock

Harper