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Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
4 colour-coded novels you should read and what they really mean
We are always surrounded by colour: cerulean sea waves with splashes of white, vermillion apples that are pale yellow when sliced through, and the neon green traffic lights. However, colours are not merely visual, they carry sentiments, memories, and meanings. They have often been used in art and literature to evoke certain feelings and symbolise particular meanings. Here are a few novels where colours are used to craft deeper narratives: Bluets (Wave Books, pages 99, Rs 1294) is often referred to as a lyrical essay. As the title suggests, Bluets is a meditation on the colour blue written in the form of fragmented prose-poetry. Converging beauty, grief, and desire, part memoir and part poetry, Nelson reflects on love, loss, and suffering, all through the lens of blue. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983, The Color Purple (W&N, pages 288, Rs 399) is an epistolary novel written by Alice Walker. Considered an American modern classic, the novel reflects the experience of African American women in twentieth-century America. The novel spans decades and explores themes such as gendered violence and systematic racism through the letters of Celie. Albeit the use of the colour purple is subtle, it is a recurring motif in the story that symbolises awareness, transformation, beauty, and spirituality. Written by the acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book (Penguin Books Limited, pages 480, Rs 499) follows the story of Galip, a lawyer, who is on the search for his missing wife and a popular newspaper columnist, Celal. Blending mystery, metafiction, and existential themes, the result is an experimental novel that meditates on identity through an enchanting and elusive tale. Pamuk utilises the concept of the colour black to create an atmosphere of mystery and obscurity, a shadowy blackness that permeates the novel.
Tatler Asia
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tatler Asia
Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 2025: 6 timely books shaping how women document our complex world
'The Story of a Heart' by Rachel Clarke Above 'The Story of a Heart' by Rachel Clarke (Photo: Abacus) Palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke brings her signature depth and restraint to the story of a child's heart transplant, an event that might, in another writer's hands, invite melodrama. Instead, Clarke writes with a clinician's precision and a humanist's empathy, charting the emotional undercurrents of grief, hope and moral complexity that surround organ donation. It's not about the transplant as a 'miracle' but as an existential moment shared by multiple families, connected by something more than just biology. 'Raising Hare' by Chloe Dalton Above 'Raising Hare' by Chloe Dalton (Photo: Canongate Books) What begins as an act of compassion rescuing an injured hare during the early days of lockdown becomes an unexpectedly haunting meditation on care, autonomy and the porous boundary between wildness and domestic life. Chloe Dalton resists the twee instincts of nature writing, instead offering a narrative that leans into the uncanny. The hare, which keeps returning unbidden, becomes a symbol not just of resilience but of something older and harder to name: instinct, memory and the nonverbal contracts between species. 'Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Courageous WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka' by Clare Mulley Above 'Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Courageous WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka' by Clare Mulley (Photo: W&N) Clare Mulley resurrects the story of Elżbieta Zawacka or 'Agent Zo', the only woman to serve as a courier for the Polish resistance and later the British Special Operations Executive. This isn't a Cold War caricature of female espionage. Instead, Mulley paints a nuanced, multidimensional portrait of a woman navigating the brutal moral calculus of war. Without softening Zawacka's contradictions or overplaying heroism, Agent Zo becomes both a gripping biography and a serious exploration of patriotism, gender and survival under totalitarianism. 'What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World's Oceans' by Helen Scales Above 'What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World's Oceans' by Helen Scales (Photo: Grove Press UK) Marine biologist Helen Scales writes with the curiosity of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet in this quietly urgent account of our oceans. She doesn't sugarcoat the damage of coral bleaching, acidification and extinction, but neither does she descend into apocalyptic hopelessness. Instead, Scales chooses to write about resilience: ecosystems that adapt, communities that fight for preservation and the complex, often contradictory emotions that come with loving a world in decline. It's a book about awe as much as warning. 'Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China' by Yuan Yang Above 'Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China' by Yuan Yang (Photo: Bloomsbury Publishing) Economist and former journalist Yuan Yang follows the lives of four women in modern China as they navigate the competing pressures of ambition, family, state control and personal freedom. Structurally daring and emotionally layered, Private Revolutions avoids the trap of Western simplification. Instead, it captures the fractal nature of change: personal, political, generational and how it manifests inside kitchens, courtrooms, office towers and dissident networks. Yang's reporting is sharp, empathetic and rigorously unsentimental. What makes the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist interesting isn't its diversity, it's the editorial rigour. These aren't neat stories with clean morals. They are dense, sometimes uncomfortable and always engaging. And in an industry that still favours polished narratives told by the usual suspects, it matters that these books were chosen. The 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction doesn't offer easy consensus. Not every book will appeal to every reader, but taken together, they offer a snapshot of the questions serious non-fiction is grappling with now. That's reason enough to pay attention.
