Three recent volumes show historians moving beyond assumptions of a bounded Subcontinent, contextualising the 20th century by centring regional and local politics that complicate nation-state narratives
New books by the imprisoned founding editor of NewsClick trace his personal and political journey across two grim periods, and weave in insightful critique of science and technology
Verghese returns to familiar themes in ‘The Covenant of Water’ – modern medicine, political upheavals, and more – to confirm himself as a writer of his own type of global novel
Two publications offer a window into the workings of Himalayan art collections in the West – where the buyers and sellers are more mysterious than the esoteric artefacts they trade in
‘For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit’, an anthology of prison poems, testifies to the coercive nature of the state and society – yet its under-representation of regional poets speaks of wider exclusions
A new collection presents the harsh, even brutal lyricism of Lakdhas Wikkramasinha, forged amid the violence of the 1971 JVP insurrection and still unlike anything else in Sri Lankan letters
Abhishek Choudhary’s new biography of Atal Behari Vajpayee examines the life and legacy of India’s first BJP prime minister, puncturing misguided liberal nostalgia and the hero-worship of the Hindu Right
In 'Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths', Taylor Sherman looks to debunk Jawaharlal Nehru’s positive legacy, failing to see how his vision still saves the country from the worst of itself
Daniel Majchrowicz’s The World in Words traces the rise of Urdu travel writing, including by women, to unearth a new view on modernisation and globalisation in Southasia
