*Translated and introduced by Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak*As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak points out in her introduction, the breast is far more than a symbol in these stories - it is the means of harshly indicting an explotative social system.In "Draupadi", the protagonist, Dopdi Mejhen, is a tribal revolutionary, who, arrested and gang-raped in custody, turns the terrible wounds of her breast into a counter-offensive,In "Breast-giver", a woman who becomes a professional wet nurse to support her family, dies of painful breast cancer, betrayed alike by the breasts that had for years been her chief identity and the dozens of 'sons' she had suckled.In "Behind the Bodice", migrant labourer Gangor's 'statuesque' breasts excite the attention of ace photographer Upin Puri, triggering off a train of violence that ends in tragedy.Spivak introduces this cycle of 'breast stories' with thought-provoking essays which probe the texts of the stories, opening them up to a complex of interpretation and meaning.

    She thrives in her job as a radio jockey and at home she is the darling of the family. But her happy world starts to fall apart when revolution blooms in the country. As the people's agitation gathers strength, Sameera finds herself and her family embroiled in the politics of their adopted land. She is forced to choose between family and friends, loyalty and love, life and death.Jasmine Days is the heart-rending story of a young woman in a city where the promise of revolution turns into destruction and division.

    Often used to get around the provisions of constitutions and legal codes.A late-night phone call from his ex-girlfriend Anasuya forces writer Arjun Kumar to leave his wife and home in Delhi and travel to the mofussil town of Noma on the UP-Bihar border. The reason — Anasuya's husband, Rafique Neel, a college professor and theatre director, has mysteriously disappeared.Soon after he arrives, Arjun realizes that things are not as they seem: the police are refusing to register a missing-persons case, Rafique's student Janaki has also disappeared, and the locals are determined to turn it into a case of 'love jihad'. And when Arjun begins to dig deeper, what he finds endangers him and everyone around him.Inspired by true events from today's India, Legal Fiction is a brilliant existential thriller and a chilling parable of our times.

    The head of the family, Nadeem Dalvi, had been the subordinate mamlatdar of Madhusudan Sen, ICS, the Magistrate of Batia, and his trusted supplier of fresh eggs, fish and red meat. When it is discovered that the deaths had not been accidental or caused by fire, Sen vows to turn vegetarian until justice has been done.In this novella of stunning force and impact, a true original of Indian writing is in brilliant form.About the AuthorUpamanyu Chatterjee was born in 1959 in Patna. He spent over thirty calm and undistinguished years in the Indian Administrative Service; during that time, he wrote six novels—when no one was looking. He retired (early and honourably) in 2016 to devote himself full time to running the household. He has one wife and two daughters. He enjoys several solitary occupations.

    Despite being in a loving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly hounded by the taunts and insinuations of the people around them. Ultimately, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswara and the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test. Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties, vividly conjuring an intimate and unsettling portrait of marriage, love and sex.

    Jayant Kaikini’s gaze takes in the people in the corners of Mumbai—a bus driver who, denied vacation time, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit’s end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. In this metropolis, those who seek find epiphanies in dark movie theaters, the jostle of local trains, and even in roadside keychains and lost thermos flasks. Here, in the shade of an unfinished overpass, a factory worker and her boyfriend browse wedding invitations bearing wealthy couples’ affectations—“no presents please”—and look once more at what they own. Translated from the Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana, these resonant stories, recently awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, take us to photo framers, flower markets, and Irani cafes, revealing a city trading in fantasies while its strivers, eating once a day and sleeping ten to a room, hold secret ambitions close.

    Novel set in 3rd and 4th century India

    The mighty black river, after which the town is named, is now no more than a trickle. People have begun to listen to weather forecasts on the radio rather than looking out of the window to see if it’s going to rain. The jackfruit tree in the middle of town has suddenly started fruiting. And, most seismic of all, Paachu Yemaan, the Inspector of Police, who has terrorized the town for decades has retired. Desperate to find him something to do, his wife, Sharada, and the good-hearted Barber Sureshan decide that ex-Inspector Paachu’s post retirement project will be the reforming of the town drunk, Joby. What the two good Samaritans haven’t counted on is the chain of extraordinary events that their project is about to set in motion.

    The novel was Cobalt Blue, the story of a brother and sister who fall in love with the same man, and how a traditional Marathi family is shattered by the ensuing events – a work that both shocked and spoke to Marathi readers.

    The Naxalbari Movement is gathering strength in Bengal. Young men and women have left their homes, picked up arms to free land from the clutches of feudal landlords and the state, and return them to oppressed landless farmers. They are being arrested en masse and thrown into high-security jails. In one such jail, five Naxals are meticulously planning a jailbreak. They must free themselves if the revolution is to continue. But petty thief Bhagoban, much too happy to serve frequent terms for free food and shelter, has been planted by Jailor Bireshwar Mukherjee among them as a mole. Only, Bhagoban seems to be warming up to them. There’s Gunpowder in the Air is a searing investigation into what deprivation and isolation can do to human idealism. And Manoranjan Byapari is perhaps the most refreshing voice to emerge from Bengal in recent times.

    In her story, she speaks about her struggles after her marriage, her insecurities and her pious nature that challenged her husband's growing aspirations. She narrates the rise of Ravana's power and the blunders he made that ultimately caused the downfall of Lanka.Despite her husband's faults, Mandodari loved him and advised him to follow the path of righteousness. Ravana's defeat in a thirteen-day war turned him into a villain. But what if he were the real hero on his side of the war? What if his downfall was a result of scheming to push him out of power? This is Mandodari's story.

    The writers included here are familiar names in India – writers such as Amrita Pritam, Saadat Hasan Manto, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, and also two new women writers, Ajeet Caur and Usha Mahajan – among others.

    But even after her death, Savitri remains in the house, invisible yet constantly audible. Gradually, the inmates begin to rely on Savitri’s voice to have their lives managed.One day, Savitri falls silent. Soon afterwards, Moom, a young girl of 11 or 12 mysteriously appears in Agarwal House. And her arrival reveals several secrets.

    Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to confront him. But upon her arrival, Shalini is brought face to face with Kashmir's politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. And when life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Shalini finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love.With rare acumen and evocative prose, in The Far Field Madhuri Vijay masterfully examines Indian politics, class prejudice, and sexuality through the lens of an outsider, offering a profound meditation on grief, guilt, and the limits of compassion.

    The hostage-takers threaten to shoot pilgrims every day, unless the incumbent Government accedes to their demands. With the popular Hindu festival of Diwali just around the corner and elections less than six months away, the Government at the center is under immense pressure to act. What will the Government do? The army? The intelligence agencies? The common man? No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Who are these men? Is there a larger plot? Faced with such unprecedented events, will the country descend into unimaginable anarchy or will it rise above the issues of collective apathy and greed that have plagued it since Independence?