Here’s the stack of books I’m currently working on:

1. Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi (English translation by Lin King, published 2024) I bought this book after reading that it had won several awards. It’s written in Chinese and is a fictional account of a Japanese traveller who visits Taiwan in the first part of the 20th century.
2. Coffee ke Cup mein Chai by Manav Kaul (Hindi): Manav Kaul has been stalking me on Instagram, that’s why I’ve started reading the book. Until before I uninstalled it (because I was watching way too many reels), the algorithm kept showing me reels and posts about his books and upcoming plays.
3. The Hanging of Afzal Guru by Arundhati Roy: One of my favorite authors. Strangely, I did not like The God of Small Things very much, even though I like the way she writes and her way of using language to communicate cultural idiosyncracies. I do love her non-fiction, though. I’ve read Azadi (Freedom) and Mother Mary Comes to Me. I loved both and thought The Hanging of Afzal Guru, a compendium of essays by several Indian intellectuals would give me a good insight on understanding India today.
4. Pyre by Perumal Murugan: I have never read Perumal Murugan. A friend of mine recently mentioned the Hindi translation, which had, in turn, been translated from English. Tamil is my mother tongue, but I’m not quite sure I can tackle a work of literature with my current knowledge, hence the English translation.
5. Em No Nahi by Tarun Bhartiya: I never knew Tarun bhaiya, as we called him while growing up in Shillong. He later became a renowned journalist, filmmaker and photographer, before passing suddenly in his mid-fifties. Em No Nahi is a collection of photographs showing people from Meghalaya desisting uranium mining by the Indian government.