The Hindu On Books newsletter: Kashmir stories, Banu Mushtaq's world, talking to Keshava Guha and more

The Hindu

29-04-2025

Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter. At a discussion in Bengaluru about her International Booker Prize-shortlisted book of stories, Heart Lamp (And Other Stories/Penguin), Banu Mushtaq said she is a product of several literary and social movements in Karnataka in the 1980s. The stories translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi have a certain universality to them, even though they are set in a particular context – her home town is Hassan -- and community. 'It is interesting how all of us who identify as women face the same kind of pressures from patriarchal diktats or religion,' she pointed out. 'These are issues that women face all over the world because patriarchy is not restricted to Muslim, Indian or South Asian communities.'
In Kannada literature, Mushtaq said, Muslim characters were usually depicted in black and white. 'Either they were very beautiful, good people, or villainous characters,' said the spry 77-year-old. 'There was no grey area.' Gradually, after talks at literary workshops, she was told to 'write about your people… yourself… your surroundings… your feasts… your joys and sorrows and challenges.' This is how Mushtaq started writing, over five decades ago, writes Preeti Zachariah.
In reviews, we read Keshava Guha's new novel, and talk to Rollo Romig, who has reported from South India for years, about his new book, and Ivorian writer Gauz' whose brilliant novel, Standing Heavy, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023. Also, read Suresh Menon's tribute to Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) here.
Books of the Week
Keshava Guha's second novel, The Tiger's Share (Hachette), revolves around the lives of two families in Delhi, an inheritance wrangle between successful sisters and entitled brothers, environment degradation and social realism. Asked what inspired him to write this story, Guha tells Stanley Carvalho, 'The book started with the ending in terms of the idea. I just had this idea of an individual taking a drastic step because he was so appalled by what humans had done to the environment. Then I tried playing around with that and everything else took shape around that idea. It is a bit of a mystery where ideas come from for fiction. I don't sit down and plot it in a thorough way or anything like that.'
Guha says the people in the novel are entirely made up, but that things like the patriarchal aspect of the inheritance disputes, 'that is very much provoked, not by my own family but by families that I saw in Delhi over and over again.' His view of Delhi? 'Delhi is a city that is all about exclusion.'
In his book of short stories, The World with its Mouth Open (Penguin), Zahid Rafiq recounts the lives of Kashmiri people with a lens on the everyday. The collection has 11 tales about love, despair and deception. Rafiq uncovers the human suffering away from the usual theme of conflict by probing the inner lives of war-torn people, says the reviewer Bilal Gani. Two desperate shopkeepers, a couple who must dispose of a skeleton unearthed while workers are building their fancy new home, a young man who has lost his job – these are relatable characters, says Gani, as they are deprived of power or do not have the strength to act against forces much larger than themselves. 'From the heart of Kashmir, Rafiq's brutally honest tale is a piercing exploration of grief, loss and betrayal.'
Rollo Romig, who has been reporting on South India, follows journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh's life and death in his book, I Am on the Hit List (Context). Talking to K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj, he said the story of Gauri Lankesh touched on what interests him about South India, its literary scene, language cultures, character of its cities and legacy of communal harmony -- Gauri's signature cause as an activist. 'I really felt Gauri's story illustrated for me so much of what I love about South India and what is presently under threat.
Spotlight
Standing Heavy is the debut novel of Ivorian writer Gauz'. A sharp, scathing satire of France's colonial legacy and race politics, it is also about the interrelatedness of colonialism and capitalism. In an interview with Preeti Zachariah on the sidelines of the Kerala Literature Festival, Gauz' said: 'We are always being colonised by something or some people. They call it soft power, but in the expressions of power, there is power. Soft doesn't count; what counts is power.'
Told from the perspective of undocumented African security guards working in a Parisian shopping mall, it's about people who are 'doubly invisible.' Gauz' says someone told him that he was the 'writer of the invisible, and I am OK with that. Is it not crazy to ignore a human being in a place you enter?' The book's title refers to both the security guard job that demands people to stand for their supper, as well as to the extent of France's colonial legacy.
Browser
Ravi K. Mishra's Demography, Representation, Delimitation: The North-South Divide in India (Westland Books) narrates the story of demographic growth in modern India, from 1872, when the first Census was compiled, to 2024. In the Prologue, he argues that after going through demographic data, he is convinced that conventional wisdom that the north is the culprit of 'population explosion' and the south is the 'poster boy of population control' has gone horribly wrong.
(Westland Books) narrates the story of demographic growth in modern India, from 1872, when the first Census was compiled, to 2024. In the Prologue, he argues that after going through demographic data, he is convinced that conventional wisdom that the north is the culprit of 'population explosion' and the south is the 'poster boy of population control' has gone horribly wrong. Abundance: How We Build a Better Future (Hachette) by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson explores how the world can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds. The writers trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a 'politics of abundance' in the time of acute polarisation with the likes of Donald Trump at the helm of American politics.
(Hachette) by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson explores how the world can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds. The writers trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a 'politics of abundance' in the time of acute polarisation with the likes of Donald Trump at the helm of American politics. Devabrata Das' One More Story about Climbing a Hill (Speaking Tiger) is a collection of stories from Assam. There are 18 stories which provide an insight into life in an area of conflict. A post-modernist writer, Das often appears as a character in his stories, blurring lines between fiction and reality.
(Speaking Tiger) is a collection of stories from Assam. There are 18 stories which provide an insight into life in an area of conflict. A post-modernist writer, Das often appears as a character in his stories, blurring lines between fiction and reality. The Many Lives of Pauloma Chattopadhyay (Niyogi Books) by Devangi Bhatt, translated from the Gujarati by Mudra Joshi, is about a middle-aged housewife from Kolkata who becomes three separate individuals living in different times.