Civil Lines 6 - New Writing from India edited by Mukul Kesavan, Kai Friese and Achal Prabhala is an anthology of the best writing in English by Indian authors of impeccable credentials.
Ruchir Joshi who starts this literary magazine of sorts is a Calcutta-based film-maker and writer. U.R. Ananthamurthy is one of the leading writers from the South, whose body of work, including the classic Samskara, is largely in Kannada, Naresh Fernandes is consulting editor at Time Out India and is out with his excellent book, Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age, Manu Herbstein is of South African origin and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winner. There are many others, and this book is good.
The Remembered Village by U.R. Ananthamurthy: We lived with tigers. They were an unseen presence in our lives, their roars reverberating through the walls of our village home…We would huddle around my mother in a corner, as my grandfather recited slokas in the hope that the chant would keep the tiger away.
Civil Lines 6
edited by Mukul
Kesavan, Kai Friese and Achal Prabhala
HarperCollins
Rs.350