A tale of two traditional Sri Lankan families, one from the southern coastal belt and the other from the highlands.Two families bound by a single tragic occurrence which link their fates together.Two women whose storiesunfold like a game of chess.Kamalini, the White queen, born with a silver spoon to the upper echelons of society, possessing every material comfort but unlucky in finding true love.Mallika the Black queen, born into the lower classes of the...

Bhoomi ‘Mother Earth’ - a small town girl whose talent helps her rise aboveher circumstances.Deepani ‘Still waters’ - an innocent, sheltered teenager awakening to the pleasures of her body.Pavani ‘Blowing in the wind’ - a classic tale of a poor little rich girl.Three young girls whose paths cross in the mystical seaside town of Mandvi, soon joined by the fiery Magni and blazing Surya.The interwoven stories of these five women spans three generations, and covers ...

Finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction"The excellent strength [the novellas] share is a gracefulness and dreamlike sonority, reminiscent of writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and W.G. Sebald, wherein strange evolutions of solitary lives are the rule, and readers are held by the stately, hypnotic dignity of the voice that tells them." – San Francisco ChronicleSet in modern India, these three novellas move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to ...

In this enchanting Baby Ganesh Agency cosy crime novel, Inspector Chopra and his elephant sidekick investigate a murder at Mumbai's grandest hotel.For a century Mumbai's iconic Grand Raj Palace Hotel has welcomed the world's elite. Anyone who is anyone stays at the Grand Raj. The last thing the venerable old hotel needs is a murder . . .So when the body of American billionaire Hollis Burbank is found, the pressure is on to label it a suicid...

Dervla Murphy and her five-year-old daughter Rachel- with little money, no taste for luxury and few concrete plans- meander slowly from Bombay to the southernmost tip of India. Interested in everything they see but only truly enchanted by people, they stay in fisherman's huts and no-star hotels, travelling in packed-out buses, on foot and by local boats. They double back to the place they liked most, the hill province of Coorg, and settle down to live there for two months. Here, anchored b...

In a small town in the heart of India, a young girl, barely alive, is found in a sprawling house where thirteen people lie dead. The girl has been beaten and abused, and the house still smoulders from the fire that raked through it.The girl now awaits her trial for the murders that the local police believe she has committed. But an unconventional social worker, Simran Singh, is convinced of her innocence. As Simran begins to examine the circumstances around the case, she encounters...

A triptych of beautifully crafted novellas make up Anita Desai's exquisite new book. Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement.Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer.

‘Talk a little more’ is a collection of thirty short stories, so unique that you will not want to put the book down once you start reading.The story of the woman who became dumb when she saw her husband marry her little sister… the man who was stopped from committing suicide by divine intervention… the boy who was not afraid of snakes…the lady who did not wed the man she was engaged to and always rued it…stories such as these and others keep you intrigued till the end.The v...

"Since the death of Evelyn Waugh, Narayan is the novelist I most admire in the English language. His autobiography is worthy of his novels." —Graham Greene"I am inclined to call this the last chapter, but how can an autobiography have a final chapter? At best, it can only be a penultimate one; nor can it be given a rounded-off conclusion, as is possible in a work of fiction." So begins the last chapter of My Days, the only memoir from R. K. Narayan, hailed...

The future is here. India has just sent its first spacecraft to the moon, and the placid city of Mysore is gearing up for its own global recognition with the construction of HeritageLand - Asia's largest theme park. From behind the formidable gates of Mahalakshmi Gardens to the shanty houses on the edge of town, the people of Mysore are abuzz as they watch their city prepare for a complete transformation. Susheela, an elderly widow, is forced into a secretive new life. Uma, trying to escap...

First published in the "striking" collection, The Art of Disappearance , a novella about the the relationship between a writer and her translator ( New York Times ).Distraught by her own lack of accomplishment—especially in comparison to that of a childhood rival who has become a famous and successful publisher—a middle-aged woman has the opportunity of a lifetime: to translate t...

Sheila Dhar’s autobiographical stories, essays, and memoirs are classics of modern Indian prose. An accomplished singer, the world she inhabited included renowned north Indian classical musicians such as Begum Akhtar, Siddheshwari Bai, Fayyaz and Niaz Ahmed Khan, Kesar Bai Kerkar, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, and Bhimsen Joshi. No writer has ever conveyed the ethos of this world and the quirks of its denizens with such wit, irreverence, perceptiveness and empathy.Sheila Dhar’s writing straddles many...