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Journalism of Courage
Chronicle of an Hour and a Half (Rs 599, Westland) by Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari is a story about honour killings, digital misinformation and mob violence. Set in a Kerala town, it’s about a 40-year-old married woman and 25-year-old man having an affair. The news breaks on WhatsApp and outrages the modesty of an entire community, hopping perspectives and points-of-view as the tragedy accelerates in momentum.
Meditations after an Attempted Murder (Rs 799, Penguin) by Salman Rushdie is about the Booker-winning writer’s account of the days after he was stabbed at a New York lecture hall in 2022. The perpetrator, Hadi Matar, cost him an eye, more than 30 years after the fatwa calling for his death by Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini after the release of the controversial The Satanic Verses.
James (Rs 750, Pan Macmillan) by Percival Everett is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the point-of-view of Jim, the titular character’s companion, who is a slave and accompanies him on a trip up the Mississippi river to the ostensible freedom of the northern American states. The book follows the critically successful American Fiction, a film adaptation of Everett’s Erasure, about a Black writer frustrated with the stereotypes strapped onto authors by the publishing industry.
The World of India and China (Rs 750, Genuine Publications) by Shastri Ramachandaran is a collection of 15 articles on the two Asian neighbours published in both Indian and Chinese media, on the period between 2008 and 2022. Aimed at both students and policy experts, it veers away from hyper-nationalistic rhetoric and draws from the author’s travels through China.
The Life and Work of Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar (Rs 495, Zubaan) by B Jeevasundari has been newly translated from Tamil by V Bharathi Harishankar. It’s the first book to document the story of the woman who was sold in the late 19th century into Tamil Nadu’s devadasi system — that made girls serve the sexual needs of priests and landowners — and how she managed to escape. Growing up, she joined the Congress party, got involved with Periyar’s Self Respect movement against casteism, and is known for her lifelong advocacy against the devadasi system.
Can’t (Rs 350, Speaking Tiger) by Shinie Antony is the story of an old woman and a young boy, a duo that journeys to track down the woman’s late husband’s ex-lovers. If that’s an unlikely premise, so is her life: she is someone who can’t bear the touch of water so survives on ‘water capsules’, grieves the books she lost in her childhood, and bathes with herbs and plants.
