TRANSLATIONS TODAY
	Censoring An Iranian Love Story Shahriar Mandanipour, translated by Sara Khalili Little Brown / Hachette India, 2009 Metafiction about how an author writes a romance assuming that most of it will be censored. Delicious for lovers of the postmodern idiom.
	Broken Nest and other stories Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Sharmistha Mohanty Tranquebar Westland, 2009 Novelist Mohanty attempts to recapture the music of Tagore’s Bengali in this new anthology of his short stories. Faithful to the letter.
	100 Lyrics Gulzar, translated by Sunjoy Shekhar Viking / Penguin India, 2009 With the translations placed facing the originals in Hindi and Urdu (all in Devanagari), those who can read Gulzar in the original will be the happier, and those who can remember the largely excellent music to which these were set, happiest of all.
TERROR TALES Two veteran journalists explore different aspects of terrorism in Asia
	Seeds of Terror Gretchen Peters Hachette, 2009 In documenting the poppy agriculture and heroin trade of Afghanistan, Peters draws a parallel between the Taliban-controlled economic order and cocaine-exporting Colombia, reframing terrorism as a criminal business rather than an ideology. Meticulous and sharply written.
	The Al Qaeda Connection Imtiaz Gul Penguin / Viking, 2009 A handbook on the causes and motives of terror indoctrination in the disastrously-administered tribal areas of North-west Pakistan by senior scribe Gul eschews in-depth analysis for a quick, neatly-formatted collection of knowable facts.
	As you flip the pages of fashion photographer Scott Schuman’s long-awaited and much-talked about print selection from his street fashion blog, The Sartoralist, look out for Verve’s fashion writer Sohiny Das and Best Dressed fixture Priya Kishore in exquisite pictorial salutes to their sense of style!
	MARG ANEW India’s legendary journal of the arts undergoes a transformation. The relaunched magazine now includes photo essays, perspectives and interviews, and aims to get in touch with a generation now discovering the arts and culture in India. Relaunched on October 7 at the NCPA, Mumbai, Marg’s new look was inaugurated in its September issue, based on Indian photography and guest-edited by Rahaab Allana, curator of the Alkazi Foundation for the arts.
THE STATE OF NON-FICTION It’s been a good year for Indian non-fiction, which has made news on front pages as much as in literary reviews
	Jinnah India, Partition, Independence Jaswant Singh Rupa A landmark in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s annus horribilis for no fault of its own. Its scholarship has been questioned and its intentions doubted, but Jaswant Singh’s treatise on Jinnah’s role in the history of India and Pakistan will remain memorable for the author’s shocking explusion from his party for daring to express a measured opinion at all.
	Listening to Grasshoppers Field Notes on Democracy Arundhati Roy Penguin India Roy’s work will always find ideological opponents. Her major problem remains her liberal approach to reportage, but the more voices like hers are heard, the more she urges her audience to think. Whether that audience is Indian, international, or both, is an ongoing discussion.
	Nine Lives In Search of the Sacred in Modern India William Dalrymple Bloomsbury / Penguin India When did Dalrymple last have a quiet, low-key release? Nine Lives’ spectacular premise – the stories of nine extraordinary religious lives, ranging from Kerala to Rajasthan – is backed up reliably by some clear prose and his deep familiarity with the subcontinent.

q&a

WITH NAMITA DEVIDAYAL

Recently nominated for a Youth Icon award, the writer of The Music Room talks about her untitled new book due to be out next year

Tell us about your new book.
It is a story about a business family that runs a mithai company. It is a worldly tale about family politics – about the bitter dynamics of controlling mothers, resentful daughters-in-law, emasculated sons and rapacious siblings and how their relationships are ruled by food and money rather than love.

How did life change after The Music Room?
The Music Room was a blessed book. I scarcely expected it to strike a chord with so many people. Yes, my life did change because I now realise that when you are taken seriously as a writer, you almost become a voice of your generation and are compelled to continue writing. The most interesting thing for me, though, was to see how the protagonist of the book, my music teacher Dhondutai, who suddenly shot into the limelight, remains so unaffected and continues to be single-mindedly committed to just two things - music and God.

You were recently nominated for a Youth Icon award. Was it strange to come from a field decidedly less populist than that of many of your co-nominees?
I have to confess I was faintly amused – and of course flattered – when I was nominated along with people like Katrina Kaif and Abhinav Bhindra, only because my book was not exactly a popular book. But I do feel very gratified that, contrary to what one thinks, there is both interest in, and respect for, a subject like Indian classical music – even in an age where we are inundated with quick-fix jingles and Bollywood dhinchak!

QUICK BITE
The Don’t Diet Diet Cookbook

Suman Agarwal and Tinu Shanghvi

Vakils, Feffer and Simons, 2009

Eat happy to eat healthy, say Agarwal and Shanghvi, encouraging a feast of wholesome and homely food, including new spins on old recipes (baked ragda pattice, if you please?) in this beautifully produced book. We’re quite happy to agree.

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