Hello reader,
This week’s Southasia Review of Books newsletter arrives with a note of connection from my inbox. One of our readers, Priyanjana Pramanik, wrote in after the last edition to share what she’s been reading:
I love following the Southasia Review of Books and wanted to share a book that has been keeping me company. Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll is the first volume of Romulus Whitaker’s memoirs, written with his wife Janaki Lenin. It was an incredible look into a remarkable life working with and trying to conserve India’s reptiles, after promising his mother as a four-year-old never to kill a snake, with loads of other adventures and misadventures along the way. I’m looking forward to reading Real Life as soon as I get my hands on a physical copy!
Like Priyanjana, if you’re eyeing Amrita Mahale’s novel Real Life (or have read it already), I hope you’ll tune in to my SaRB podcast conversation with her on writing a Himalayan literary mystery.
If SaRB helps you discover new Southasian books and ideas, please consider becoming a paying Himal Patron today – your support keeps the pages turning!
And now it’s your turn: tell me what you’re currently reading, or any books you’re hoping to pick up as the year winds down. Write to me at shwethas@himalmag.com.
A conversation with the writer Dur e Aziz Amna on her new novel, A Splintering (Duckworth Books, September 2025), and its exploration of class struggle, female rage and social expectations across rural and urban Pakistan.
The episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Youtube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Four new books open up debate on why same-sex marriage has come to anchor queer politics in India, and how the notions and politics of Southasian queer life shift across local, diasporic and transnational scales of identity and belonging
By Rahul Rao | 19 November 2025
Alpa Shah’s ‘The Incarcerations’ examines the Bhima Koregaon case – as a symbol of how dissent and democracy are under assault in Modi’s India
By Uttaran Das Gupta | 7 November 2025
The historian Aparajith Ramnath’s biography of Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya has won the 2025 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize for the best non-fiction writing on modern and contemporary India. Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M Visvesvaraya (Penguin India, August 2024) offers a portrait of one of modern India’s most influential engineers of the 20th century, tracing his legacy not only in civil engineering but also in public administration, constitutional thought and development planning.
In The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern Asia (Columbia Global Reports, November 2025), the writer and journalist Sonia Faleiro investigates the rise of Buddhist extremism, focusing on Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand – where nationalist Buddhists are the most active. She traces how political monks like Sri Lanka’s Gnanasara and Myanmar’s Wirathu turned a tradition of nonviolence into a tool of persecution, while dissident monks struggle to reclaim their faith.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Tisaranee Gunasekara writes on how, after the 2022 protests and the fall of the Rajapaksas, Sri Lankan monks are politically adrift and looking to project new threats – including Christians.
Tamil Buddhism and brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance against Caste by Gajendran Ayyathurai (OUP, November 2025) explores how Tamil Buddhism emerged as a response to caste oppression in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Focusing on the pioneering anti-caste thinker Iyothee Thass, the book shows how he reinterpreted India’s Buddhist past to challenge brahminical dominance, mobilise oppressed communities, and envision a casteless modernity.
Together, these books reveal how Buddhism has been wielded in Southasia – sometimes as a tool of oppression, sometimes as a force for liberation.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Gajendran Ayyathurai traces Buddhism’s long fight against brahminism and caste in his review essay on Douglas Ober’s Dust on the Throne.
This month sees the publication of Rahul Bhattacharya’s new novel, Railsong (Bloomsbury, November 2025). Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, dreams of a life beyond domestic constraints. As diesel engines replace steam and droughts, famine and strikes unsettle her township, she boards a train west to Bombay, navigating the frenetic metropolis as India edges toward Emergency.
Another celebrated writer, Salman Rushdie, turns his imagination to life’s final act in The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories (Penguin Random House, November 2025), spanning the three countries central to his work – India, England and the United States. Do we accept death or rail against it? Spend our “eleventh hour” in serenity or rage? Rushdie’s quintet probes life, death, legacy and identity with his signature narrative daring.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Prathap Nair reflects on how Abraham Verghese returns to familiar themes in The Covenant of Water to confirm himself as a writer of his own type of global novel.
Football in India is alive and kicking – not just because of major clubs or top competitions, but thanks to regional tournaments, local heroes and the communities keeping the game thriving. From Kolkata’s Khep games and Kerala’s fiercely contested 7s league to Meghalaya’s Basti tournaments, football pulses across the country. Sandeep Menon’s Sacred Grounds: A Journey Through People’s Football in India (Penguin India, November 2025) captures these unique football cultures and a people’s history of the sport.
The comedian and actor Vir Das’s The Outsider: A Memoir for Misfits (HarperCollins India, November 2025) is a world tour of heartbreak, failure, and grit, tracing his unlikely rise to comedic fame. From detours through Bollywood and Hollywood to life as a professional misfit, Das reflects on how being an outsider shapes identity – and fuels both humor and resilience.
Growing up in India, everyone called Zarna Garg “so American” for reading, thinking deeply, and talking back. Fleeing an arranged marriage at fourteen, she lands in Ohio, navigating roles from lawyer to prizewinning screenwriter – until stand-up comedy becomes her home. This American Woman: A One-in-A-Billion Memoir (Ballantine Books, April 2025) is her story of carving out a life on her own terms.
Standstill: The Art of Evading My Problems Across Three Continents (Penguin, August 2025), by the Sri Lankan-born Australian stand-up comedian Sashi Perera, chronicles reluctant self-discovery after a cancelled destination wedding in Sri Lanka. From refugee work to chaotic romances, Perera’s memoir explores the loss of a sense of self and place – and the messy, winding path to finding them again.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Sowmiya Ashok writes on how the Canadian-Tamil comedian Sunthar V navigates queerness and pushes boundaries with his humour.
Until next time, happy reading!
Shwetha Srikanthan
Associate Editor, Himal Southasian
💌 Are there any new books, authors or events you would like to see featured? I’d love to hear from you. Write to me at shwethas@himalmag.com.
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