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Destiny at Trichy

Destiny at Trichy
  • Author(s): Julie Marsh, Michael Maher
  • Location(s): Trichy (Tiruchirappalli)
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): Contemporary

After travelling in India for 5 months, Michael and Julie meet with a dramatic accident in the revered temple city of Trichy, Tamil Nadu. Their hotel is blacked out and dangerously engulfed by an electrical fire; the only escape,...

The Pagoda Tree

The Pagoda Tree
  • Author(s): Claire Scobie
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras), Thanjavur (Tanjore)
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 18th Century

Tamil Nadu, southern India, 1765. Maya plays among the towering granite temples in the ancient city of Tanjore. Like her mother before her, she is destined to become a devadasi, a dancer for the temple. On the day of...

Pyre

Pyre
  • Author(s): Perumal Murugan, Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Translator)
  • Location(s): Tamil Nadu
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Saroja and Kumaresan are young, in love and in danger. They meet in a small southern Indian town, where Kumaresan works in a soda bottling shop, and quickly marry before returning to Kumaresan’s family village. But they are harbouring...

Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments

Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments
  • Author(s): Hema Sukumar
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Grand Life Apartments is a middle-class apartment block surrounded by lush gardens in the coastal city of Chennai, India. It is the home of Kamala, a pious, soon-to-be retired dentist who spends her days counting down to the annual...

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...

Blue-Skinned Gods

Blue-Skinned Gods
  • Author(s): S J Sindu
  • Location(s): Tamil Nadu
  • Genre(s): Coming of Age, Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy named Kalki is born with blue skin. He believes that he is the Hindu god Vishnu and that he can perform miracles. The truth, however, is much darker… As Kalki struggles to extract...

A Will to Kill

A Will to Kill
  • Author(s): R V Raman
  • Location(s): Tamil Nadu
  • Genre(s): Cosy Mystery
  • Era(s): Contemporary

MIST Ageing millionaire Bhaskar Fernandez has invited his relatives to the remote, and possibly haunted, Greybrooke Manor, high up in the misty Nilgiris. MOUNTAINS He knows his guests expect to gain from his death, so he writes two conflicting...

A Gift for Amma: Market Day in India

A Gift for Amma: Market Day in India
  • Author(s): Meera Sriram, Mariona Cabassa (Illustrator)
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras)
  • Genre(s): Children
  • Era(s): N/A

In this #OwnVoices book inspired by the author’s hometown of Chennai, India, a girl explores the vibrant rainbow of delights in a southern Indian street market as she searches for a gift for her amma (mother). Endnotes explain all...

The Bridge Home

The Bridge Home
  • Author(s): Padma Viswanathan
  • Location(s): Chennai (Madras)
  • Genre(s): Children
  • Era(s): N/A

Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Padma Venkatraman’s stirring middle-grade debut. Life is harsh on the teeming streets of Chennai, India, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly,...

The Mission House

The Mission House
  • Author(s): Carys Davies
  • Location(s): Ooty (Udagamandalam)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contempoary

Fleeing the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty, a hill station in South India. There he finds solace in life’s simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver...

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