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

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 

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

Aatish Taseer

   The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard

   The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine

   Rebel Sultans by Manu S Pilla
   
   Proust’s Duchess by Caroline Weber

   We That Are Young by Preti Taneja

Shashi Deshpande

   The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm

   Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K Massie

   The Perfect Spy by John le Carre

    Still Alice by Lisa Genova

     Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Raghu Karnad 

Ants Among Elephants by Sujatha Gidla 

Brothers of the Gun by Molly Crabapple and Marwan Hisham

Goat Days by Benyamin

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

Indira Gandhi: Tryst With Power by Nayantara Sahgal

Vivek Shanbhag

Dark Circles by Udayan Mukherjee

The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray by Jorge Amado

Meenupeteya Thiruvu: A collection of Kannada poems by Renuka Ramanand

Mallige Hoovina Sakha: A collection of Kannada stories by T S Goravara

There is Gunpowder in the Air: Bangla Original by Manoranjan Byapari; translated by Arunava Sinha

Anita Nair

Seasons of the Palm by Perumal Murugan

From A to X (A story in letters) by John Berger

In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin

The Colour by Rose Tremain

Offer Him All Things: Charred, Burned & Cindered by Kala Krishnan Ramesh

Sharanya Manivannan

The Elephant In The Room (anthology) 

Diwali in Muzaffarnagar by Tanuj Solanki

Offer Him All Things... by Kala Krishnan Ramesh

Cyber Sexy by Richa Kaul Padte

Eating Wasps by Anita Nair