#DHRecaps | Writers' choice: In 2018, who read what

Eight writers list their best five reads of 2018

Last Updated : 30 December 2018, 05:42 IST

Nayantara Sahgal

Two great novels I have admired this year are: Jasoda by Kiran Nagarkar, and I Have Become The Tide by Githa Hariharan. Nagarkar tells a story of the sordid uses of power in our feudal society, the living hell it makes for the poor and powerless, and how the human spirit rises above it. It has the gut-wrenching impact of all his fiction. You come away shaken and shocked. And so with Hariharan’s no-holds-barred novel, which describes what happens to those in our society who are condemned as untouchable but dare to dream of equality. A great non-fiction work I have read is The Free Voice by Ravish Kumar, writer, journalist, and TV anchor, whose book subtitled On Democracy, Culture And the Nation should be required reading for every Indian. This collection of his reaction to the political and social climate in India today, translated from the original Hindi, reveals a sensitive human being, deeply engaged with the times we are living in, and determined to speak out against injustice and horror, no matter what the cost.
What all three works have in common is the integrity of their writing and their writers.

Jayanth Kaikini

Patniyaru Kandante Prasiddharu by B S Venkatalakshmi
Maharashtrada Kannada Shaasanagala Sanskrithika Mahathva by Dr G N Upaadhya
Dashaavathaara - Yakshagana Kalavida Maragodu Raam Hegde Athmakathe
Diddi - My Mother’s Voice by Ira Pandey
Stars From Another Sky — The Bombay film world in the 1940s by Saadat Hasan Manto

Aatish Taseer