The God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

Set in a village in the south-western Indian province of Kerala, the novel opens with the arrival of Rahel to her home at Ayenemen to meet Esthappen. It centres about the life of the fraternal twins, Rahel and her brother Esthappen, their mother Ammu and other members of the family.

The work is lyrical and poetic, uses unusual imagery and metaphors and appeals equally to the intellect as well as the sentiments of the reader. We find some of the singular figurative expressions as in the line : The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabed roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. Or when the river's decription is given as Once it had the power to evoke fear. To change lives. But now its teeth were drawn, its spirit spent. It was just a slow sludging green ribbon lawn that furried fetid garbage to the sea.

It is an intricate writing that explores the depths of human nature, their passions, yearnings, quarrels with fate and the acceptance of inevitability.

Amu

by Shonali Bose

Amu, is the story of a twenty one year old girl, Kajori (Kaju) Roy, Indian by birth but brought up in Los Angeles by her adoptive mother Keya Roy, an activist. The story takes place in a span of around 5 months – October 2001 to February 2002 and during which Kaju’s life traverses a roller coaster ride.

It all starts with Kaju’s decision and determination to go to her land of birth and discover her roots. Keya at first vehemently expressed her unwillingness to the idea but had to finally give in before Kaju’s resolve. Kaju, thus finally finds herself amidst the unsettled layers of history and legend of Delhi where the past and present were hopelessly mixed up.

An Area Of Darkness

by V. S. Naipaul

Born and brought up in an Indian colony of Trinidad, V.S. Naipaul always thought India to be the country from which his grandfather came, a country never physically described and therefore never real, a country out in the void beyond the dot of Trinidad… a country suspended in time… So in 1962 he set out to discover this country of his imagination. But during his journey, as the physique of Europe melted away and he found himself into the Aryan Asia, his feelings are described as “Hysteria had been my first reaction, and a brutality dictated by a new awareness of myself as a whole human being and a determination, touched with fear, to remain what I was.” His first journey to India was of “Superficial impressions, intemperate reactions”.

Mother Night

by Kurt Vonnegut

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be" - This is the moral of the story that the author states in the introduction.Mother Night is an account of the confessions of Howard. W. Campbell Jr. from a prison in old Jerusalem in the year 1961 where he awaits a fair trial for his war crimes.

The story starts when he introduces himself as an American by birth, a Nazi by reputation and a nationless person by inclination. What he missed, however was that he was also secretly a US spy. His secret unknown not just to the world but his parents and even his wife. The reader delves into the life of Howard through his own account where he sketches his biography from his birth in 1912 to his coming to the jail of Israel and more.