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A People’s History of Heaven

A People’s History of Heaven
  • Author(s): Mathangi Subramanian
  • Location(s): Bangalore (Bengaluru)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Early 21st Century

Nestled between the luxury high-rise blocks of Bangalore is an ironically named slum called Heaven. It’s here that five girls – Muslim, Christian and Hindu; gay and straight – forge a binding friendship. But when Heaven is threatened by...

And Laughter Fell from the Sky

And Laughter Fell from the Sky
  • Author(s): Jyotsna Sreenivasan
  • Location(s): Bangalore (Bengaluru), Ohio, Portland (Oregon)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Modern

Still living at home despite a good career and financial independence, beautiful and sophisticated Rasika has always been the dutiful daughter. With her twenty-sixth birthday fast approaching, she agrees to an arranged marriage, all while trying to hide from...

Sylvia

Sylvia
  • Author(s): Maithreyi Karnoor
  • Location(s): Karnataka, Goa
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Longing to connect to his ancestral roots, Cajetan Pereira has taken up residence near one of the rare and mystical Baobab trees in South India. Into his world walks Sylvia, a young woman in search of a story. They...

The Daughters of Madurai

The Daughters of Madurai
  • Author(s): Rajasree Variyar
  • Location(s): Madurai
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1990s onwards

‘A girl is a burden. A girl is a curse.’ Madurai, 1992. A young mother in a poor family, Janani is told she is useless if she can’t produce a son – or worse, bears daughters. They let her...

The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things
  • Author(s): Arundhati Roy
  • Location(s): Kottayam
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1960s

This is the story of Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind grandmother’s factory, and amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala. Armed only with the innocence of youth, they fashion...

The Hope Factory

The Hope Factory
  • Author(s): Lavanya Sankaran
  • Location(s): Bangalore (Bengaluru)
  • Genre(s): Fiction

Two families. One city. Too many secrets Anand is a Bangalore success story: successful, well-married, rich. At least, that’s how he appears. But if his little factory is to grow, he needs land and money and, in the New...

The Illicit Happiness of Other People

The Illicit Happiness of Other People
  • Author(s): Manu Jospeh
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1990s

Seventeen-year-old Unni has done something terrible. The only clue to his actions lies in a comic strip he has drawn, which has fallen into the hands of his father Ousep – a nocturnal anarchist with a wife who is...

The Last Devadasi

The Last Devadasi
  • Author(s): Barbara L Baer
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras)
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Romance
  • Era(s): 1970s

Madras (Chennai) 1970s. Kamala Kumari, beautiful and proud, is a Gemini Studio starlet who cannot reveal her caste origins because of the stigma attached to the Devadasis, women who have been dedicated to temple gods and often were forced...

The Last Hangman

The Last Hangman
  • Author(s): Shashi Warrier
  • Location(s): Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Travancore (until 1947)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 20th Century

In the heat and the dust of the Indian south, the last hangman of the former princely state of Travancore commits his life to paper. In seven notebooks he remembers the people he has killed, calmly recalling the final...

The Pleasure Seekers

The Pleasure Seekers
  • Author(s): Tishani Doshi
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras), London
  • Era(s): 1960s onwards

August, 1968: Babo Patel arrives in London from Madras, with curly hair, jhill mill teeth and dreams of becoming a success. When he meets the beautiful, auburn-haired Siân Jones, he falls in love instantly. She, like him, is in...

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