Hello reader,
In February 2021, Myanmar’s military junta ended a decade of fragile democratic transition with a coup. What followed was the Spring Revolution: a youth-led uprising that continues to challenge the junta with remarkable courage and collective action.
The road to democracy in Myanmar has been long and turbulent, stretching back nearly four decades to the 1988 uprising. Ma Thida, one of the country’s leading activists and intellectuals, has lived through it all. In her new book, A-Maze (Balestier Press, May 2024), she traces how far Myanmar has come, how far it still has to go, and how the struggle since the 2021 coup has reshaped its fight for democracy. She joins me on the latest episode of the Southasia Review of Books podcast to unpack this journey.
As I read about Myanmar’s youth taking on a repressive military, I couldn’t help but think back to Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya movement in 2022, which saw the president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ousted amid a massive financial crisis. Across Southasia, we’ve seen other powerful youth-led movements – Bangladesh’s July Revolution and, most recently, Nepal’s Gen-Z protests – which have pushed governments to shift course.
But Myanmar’s struggle is far from over. As Ma Thida reminds us, “Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh – their political structures have been very different from ours. Long-term military rule makes it extremely difficult for Myanmar’s Gen Z to overcome so many challenges.”
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As the Spring Revolution approaches its fifth year, Ma Thida, one of Myanmar’s foremost activists and intellectuals, reflects on the country’s political trajectory leading up to and beyond the 2021 military coup – and the people’s enduring fight for democracy.
Her new book, A-Maze: Myanmar’s Struggle for Democracy, 2011-2023 (Balestier Press, May 2024), looks at nearly three years of resistance and transformation, showing how the Spring Revolution isn’t just about ending military rule, but about breaking out of the larger “Maze” – the deep-rooted systems of control and inequality – and building together a new path toward a truly federal and democratic Myanmar.
The episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Youtube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
In The Great Indian Brain Rot: Love, Lies and Algorithms in Digital India (Bloomsbury India, November 2025), Anurag Minus Verma dives into the chaotic theatre of India’s digital culture, where fame is currency and cringe is performance art. Through humorous and incisive essays, he dissects the influencer hustle, the economics of virality and the class and caste politics underpinning the country’s social media. With wit and bite, the book aims to exposes the loneliness, absurdity and quiet desperation driving India’s online life.
Ravikant Kisana’s Meet the Savarnas: Indian Millennials Whose Mediocrity Broke Everything (Ebury Press, May 2025) turns the lens toward the urban elites who once embodied the “India Shining” dream. Kisana argues that this post-liberalisation generation – the dominant-caste savarnas of globalised India – has shaped the country’s institutions and imaginations while remaining blind to the privilege of caste. Wry and provocative, the book asks: how did those meant to propel India into greatness end up reproducing the very hierarchies that held it back?
📖 From the Himal Archives: An interview with Ajantha Subramanian on her book, The Caste of Merit, and how technical knowledge became the preserve of a ‘meritorious’ upper-caste elite in India and beyond.
And in Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us: The Psychology of Indians (Aleph Book Company, August 2025), Manu Joseph offers his own darkly funny diagnosis of Indian society, probing why the poor, despite immense inequality, rarely revolt against the rich. The book lays bare how hypocritical and exploitative the privileged classes are – and how easily they get away with it. Skewering both the rich and the complacent middle class, Joseph exposes the quiet, corrosive bargains that sustain India’s vast inequalities and the uneasy peace built on them.
Together, these books map the contradictions of modern India – from its digital delusions to elite complacencies and its unshaken inequalities.
On the surface, Tibetan Sky (Sinoist Books, November 2025) by the Beijing-based novelist and essayist Ning Ken, translated by Thomas Moran, is a love story. A troubled divorcé, Wang Mojie, arrives in rural Tibet through a “Teach for China” scheme, where he meets the elusive Ukyi Lhamo, freshly returned from her studies in France. Both are adrift – searching for meaning, belonging and transcendence in Tibet.
What begins as a meeting of kindred discontents soon turns darker. As Wang’s masochistic desires collide with Ukyi’s yearning for freedom, the two find themselves testing the limits of intimacy and faith. Around them, a circle of self-exiled intellectuals argues over philosophy, purpose and the futility of it all.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Amish Raj Mulmi surveys how a generation of Tibetan writers, many working in English, are laying claim to the voice of exile and pushing back against the fetishisation of Tibet by the West.
Two powerful new books out this month turn their gaze to India’s past and present – and to the urgent questions of truth, rights and resistance that bind them.
In Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present (Penguin India, November 2025), the historian Romila Thapar joins the writer and social critic Namit Arora to explore how history is written, remembered and weaponised. Through a series of wide-ranging conversations, they unpack how evidence is weighed, interpretations are made, and why the past has become a political battlefield. From caste and gender to religion, mythology and nationalism, they traverse much-contested ground, asking: what can we really know about our past – and why does it matter so much today?
At a time when the discipline is under siege, Thapar and Arora offer both a defence of rigorous scholarship and a reminder of the importance of understanding history.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Romila Thapar writes on why moving beyond colonial-era frameworks of history offers a new way to understand the Subcontinent’s past. In another essay from Himal’s pages, she argues that India must reclaim its own historical secularism – rather than reject it as an imported idea – if it is to move towards more just and inclusive governance.
Also out this month, Whither Human Rights in India (India Viking, November 2025), edited by Anand Teltumbde, gathers some of India’s foremost thinkers, activists and defenders of human rights to examine the state of justice and freedom in the country today. The essays trace the historical and ideological roots of India’s human-rights discourse – from colonial legacies and constitutional ideals to the challenges posed by majoritarian politics, state violence and systemic inequality.
Contributors including Harsh Mander, Kalpana Kannabiran, Aakar Patel, Teesta Setalvad and Gautam Navlakha turn their attention to the institutions and practices shaping India’s human-rights landscape: judicial responses, hate speech, impunity, “bulldozer justice” and contested models of development. Importantly, they also illuminate the lived realities of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and other marginalised communities whose struggles for dignity lie at the heart of India’s democratic promise.
📖 From the Himal Archives: Harsh Mander lays bare the unprecedented political exclusion of Indian Muslims under Hindu Right rule.
Two new books recover and reimagine women’s presence on India’s stages – from Kerala’s mainstream theatre to the country’s radical street performances.
For the Love of Art: The Lost History of Women in Kerala Theatre by Sajitha Madathil, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil (Penguin India, November 2025), is a landmark feminist history that traces how women actors in Kerala were long persecuted and marginalised, even as they transformed the stage and won national acclaim. Published as part of “Chronicles” – a non-fiction translation series from Penguin India, in collaboration with the Ashoka Centre for Translation – this volume is a vivid account of courage, creativity and persistence against patriarchy.
In Walking Out, Speaking Up: Feminist Street Theatre in India (Zubaan Books, September 2025), Deepti Priya Mehrotra chronicles the explosive, defiant energy of feminist street theatre from the late 1970s onward. Drawing on oral histories, scripts, visuals and archival material, she captures how women performers turned public spaces into sites of protest – staging plays that confronted dowry killings, sexual violence, caste and communal bigotry. These were theatres of rage and resistance, where art met activism and performance became politics.
Together, these texts unpack how women across generations have used theatre – both on stage and in the streets – to challenge silence, reclaim space and reshape the language of dissent.
📖 From the Himal Archives: A review essay by Ranjana Dave explores how dancers and theatre performers navigate individuality and collective identity through their art – and how caste continues to shape and control gender and sexuality in modern Indian performance.
This November, our friends at Champaca Bookstore are hosting an online course on Characterisation: Writing Realistic, Interesting, Convincing Characters in Fiction, led by Mumbai-based author Unmana.
Designed for writers working on novels, short stories or memoirs, this four-session course (20 November to 11 December, every Thursday, 7–9 PM IST) explores how to create characters that feel alive on the page. Participants will learn to map their characters’ motivations and quirks, craft dialogue that feels true to voice, and shape arcs that make transformation believable. The course also examines how to write marginalised characters with empathy and depth, and includes hands-on exercises with personal feedback in a small-group setting.
With a fee of INR 9500, including three books, and one scholarship seat available, the batch is limited to 15–20 participants. Please share this with writers or friends who might be interested, and reach out to hello@champaca.in with any questions. Find out more and sign up here.
Got a literary event you’d like us to feature on the SaRB newsletter? Write to me at shwethas@himalmag.com.
Until next time, happy reading!
Shwetha Srikanthan
Associate Editor, Himal Southasian
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