Published by Penguin, 2001, 483 pages. The body of a young English woman is found in the Pettah—a disreputable part of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Not a place where you would wander around at night. So what was the young woman, Dorothy Bell, doing in the Pettah? Who killed her? Dorothy’s father, Reginald Bell, a wealthy …
Abid Hasan Safrani—Netaji’s Comrade-in-Arms: Compiled by Ismat Mehdi and Shehbaz Safrani
Published by Orient BlackSwan, 2023, 148 pages. “Abid Hasan Safrani...was a quiet revolutionary who kept himself out of the limelight even while being present at every vital scene and moment of the final phase of our freedom struggle...”—Sugata Bose, Foreword First of all, full disclosure: Ismat Mehdi is my aunt. So this book is personal …
The Devil’s Flute Murders: Seishi Yokomizo
Translated from Japanese by Jim Rion.Published by Pushkin Vertigo, 2023, 348 pages. Original version published in 1973. Japan 1947. The end of the Second World War has resulted in social upheaval, and the aristocracy has lost its privileges, which earns it the moniker of the “sunset clan”. This novel is about one of these families. …
Eurotrash: Christian Kracht
Translated from German by Daniel BowlesPublished by Serpent's Tail, 2024, 190 pages. Original version published in 2021. “So I shall go on a trip with her, I’d thought, and maybe it will be her last.” A man takes his 80-year-old mother for a trip around their native Switzerland, revisiting places from their past—and in the …
Dearly: Margaret Atwood
Published by Chatto & Windus, 2020, 124 pages “Dearly beloved, gathered here togetherin this closed drawer,fading now, I miss you.I miss the missing, those who left earlier.I miss even those who are still here.I miss you all dearly.Dearly do I sorrow for you.” “You can wander away. You can get lost.Words can do that.”—Dearly These …
Mindscapes—A Canvas of Emotions in a Special World: Neena Rao
Published by Margika—An NGO for Special Needs Children, 2022, 249 pages. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in four people faces challenges in the functioning of their body or mind. Many of them start experiencing these challenges— autism, for example, or a physical disability—before they are 25. However, this does not mean that …
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Homesick: Jennifer Croft
Published by Charco Press, 2022, 219 pages. “All of us are anything, everything, brimming with secrets. Above all we are the shelter we seek out in others and the safe havens we become for those we choose to love.” Amy and Zoe are sisters. Amy is older by three years and is very protective of …
Heart Lamp—Selected Stories: Banu Mushtaq
Translated from Kannada by Deepa BhasthiPublished by Penguin India / And Other Stories, 2025, 216 pages. Original versions of stories first published in 2013 and 2023. A woman whose husband leaves her for another woman is saved by her children; a man who becomes obsessed with a pair of high-heeled shoes forces his wife to …
Cycling Across the Middle East: An Interview with Rebecca Lowe
Rebecca Lowe is a British journalist specializing in the Middle East and human rights. Her book, The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East (2022), was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year Award 2023. Rebecca has written for the BBC, The Guardian, The Times, …
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Time Shelter: Georgi Gospodinov
Translated from Bulgarian by Angela RodelPublished by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2023, 304 pages. Original version published in 2020. What if there was a way to turn back the clock and live in the past? A geriatric psychiatrist called Gaustine, living in Zurich, believes that patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s can be helped by going into …
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