The first spirit Sanjoy Roy encountered was one that haunted his ancestral house in Calcutta; he was five then. A few years later, the otherworldly made its presence felt again in his parents’ sprawling bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi. Over the decades that followed, he and his family and friends have come across a variety of apparitions, spectres and phantoms in diverse locations both in India and abroad. Some of these beings are benign or at most mischievous, but others–lost, disturbed souls–are angrier and have to be placated.
For Sanjoy, his ability to sense and interact with the supernatural is not something remarkable, but part of his everyday reality. As he sees it, there is perhaps a dimension parallel to ours, one that is teeming with spirits and souls. There’s a Ghost in My Room is a fascinating travelogue through that mysterious world.
Rich in period detail, humour and adventure, this unusual memoir makes for a compelling read and is sure to enthrall both the haunted-world sceptic and those who believe.
I interviewed him for TOI Bookmark. Here is the Spotify link.
Sanjoy K. Roy is Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over thirty highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across forty cities including the world’s largest literary gathering: the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.
Journalist Nayanima Basu had a ringside view of the total collapse of the republic of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban. From 8 to 17 August 2021, based in Kabul but travelling outside and talking to Afghans across the political spectrum, she sent despatches of the Taliban sweeping through the country, with provinces falling one after another. Covering a hostile war zone, a woman all alone, she saw the fall of Kabul in real time and managed to get out on the last flight by negotiating with Taliban bosses. Basu transports us to the heart of the action with her vivid narration and precise descriptions of what was happening in Afghanistan at large and Kabul in particular. Through her astonishing account of how she did her reporting – from asking gun-toting civilians for help to find her way back to her hotel and being chided by the hotel employees to stay safe in an iron room to being the only Indian journalist to ever interview the ‘Butcher of Kabul’ – Basu tells the story of not just the wreckage of the country’s present but also of the contentious past that lead to it.
Nayanima Basu has penned a truly gripping first person account of the dramatic fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021. It reflects her indomitable courage in the face of acute and ever-present danger and her unfailing commitment to professionalism as a journalist. This is outstanding reporting but within a frame of deep political and historical familiarity with a truly complex country.- Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary of India
Nayanima Basu has given us a lively and informed account of her stay in Afghanistan at a pivotal moment, just as the Taliban took over the country in 2021. More than a diary of travel in a dangerous, exciting and exotic place, this book is an explanation of a phenomenon, the return of the Taliban, with which the world has yet to come to terms. Its consequences are still playing out, making this a valuable contribution to understanding the increasingly complex geopolitics of India’s periphery.- Shivshankar Menon, Former National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary of India
An honest and poignant account of what unfolded in August 2021 in Afghanistan, which the world is still grappling with…What makes this book distinctive is the simple narration of an extremely difficult period that once again brought the Taliban back in power.- A.S. Dulat, former Head of Research and Analysis Wing and Special Director, Intelligence Bureau
Nayanima Basu is a New Delhi–based journalist covering foreign policy and strategic and security affairs with nearly two decades of experience. A major in history from the University of Delhi, Nayanima has been professionally associated with several media organisations such as the IANS, Business Standard, The Hindu Group, ThePrint and ABP Network. She has covered stories such as the assassination of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, India’s crucial years at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the global financial recession, India’s evolving ties with its difficult neighbours like Pakistan and China, and bilateral and multilateral summits. In the course of her reportage, she has also interviewed several key Indian and international political and military figures.
Economica: A global history of women, wealth and power by Dr. Victoria Bateman charts the course of women’s contribution to their national economy and acknowledges work done as being within and without the house too. Quite contrary to what Adam Smith believed that only paid work outside the home was construed as a contribution to the economy. Whereas Dr Bateman shows through empirical evidence marshalled from as far as the Stone Age to the present, the AI age, that women’s contribution, paid or unpaid was an essential part of the economy. Her book is packed with facts, anecdotes, histories, archaeological evidence, data sets etc. For instance, marriage contracts signed between the 11C and 15C included a clause wherein the woman could state she had the right to work after marriage. There are so many bits and pieces of information to share but the most enlightening was her use of the word “overlooked”. To use it constantly in the context of new evidence that confirmed the value of a woman’s work in the past is very empowering use of a simple word. It gives the reader the opportunity to reflect upon situations that they themselves may have been, where their evidence and work is overlooked whereas they are on the right path. It is new evidence so others cannot see it, recognise it, value it, or understand it. Developing faith in oneself and growing from there is what this book helps to achieve. It is not just a revisiting of inherited economic history narratives.
Humanity’s journey from poverty to prosperity is filled with men who have become household names. But how many female entrepreneurs, merchants and industrialists can you name?
Economica places women at the centre of the story of economic growth. Starting in the Stone Age and continuing to the present day, it takes the reader through the key economic milestones of the past twelve millennia — from the birth of farming to the advent of computing — all told through the experiences of women as well as men.
Historian Victoria Bateman weaves a thrilling, globe-spanning narrative that proves women weren’t ‘missing’ from economic life, they were merely hidden from view. We discover the female workers who helped to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, and to plumb the city of ancient Rome; the silk weavers who made a vital contribution to the development of the Silk Road and global trade; the women who dominated London’s brewing trade during medieval times; and the brave twentieth-century pioneers who fought to make our economies not just richer but fairer.
Dr Bateman is an economic historian, author and historical consultant. Her latest book, Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power, is the first major economic history of the world to be told from the perspective of female wealth creators.
Victoria has twenty years of experience teaching macroeconomics and economic history at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, including as Director of Studies in Economics at Gonville and Caius College. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is currently a visiting academic at Gresham College, London. Victoria has spoken extensively on radio and television, providing historical context for current events, including as resident economic historian for BBC Radio 4’s “Understand: the economy”. In addition to her writing and speaking, Victoria also works as a historical consultant for period dramas on TV and screen. Victoria is passionate about communicating economic history and believes in using our knowledge of the past to inform the present and to build a better future.
Victoria has been profiled by The Times, has written for the Guardian, The Telegraph and Bloomberg, and has appeared on numerous occasions on the BBC and ITV. Her previous books include the acclaimed Naked Feminism: Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty (2023) and The Sex Factor: How Women Made the West Rich (2019). In her spare time, you can find Victoria enjoying tea and cake after a walk in the countryside.
Economica: A global history of women, wealth and power by Dr. Victoria Bateman charts the course of women’s contribution to their national economy and acknowledges work done as being within and without the house too. Quite contrary to what Adam Smith believed that only paid work outside the home was construed as a contribution to the economy. Whereas Dr Bateman shows through empirical evidence marshalled from as far as the Stone Age to the present, the AI age, that women’s contribution, paid or unpaid was an essential part of the economy. Her book is packed with facts, anecdotes, histories, archaeological evidence, data sets etc. For instance, marriage contracts signed between the 11C and 15C included a clause wherein the woman could state she had the right to work after marriage. There are so many bits and pieces of information to share but the most enlightening was her use of the word “overlooked”. To use it constantly in the context of new evidence that confirmed the value of a woman’s work in the past is very empowering use of a simple word. It gives the reader the opportunity to reflect upon situations that they themselves may have been, where their evidence and work is overlooked whereas they are on the right path. It is new evidence so others cannot see it, recognise it, value it, or understand it. Developing faith in oneself and growing from there is what this book helps to achieve. It is not just a revisiting of inherited economic history narratives.
Here are two snippets from the book:
p. 218-9 Mary Wollstonecraft and morality
Wollstonecraft’s family’s attempts to climb the social ladder framed how she saw the world: through the lens of the section of society that lived a life somewhere between aristocrats and ordinary people. She witnessed the way in which this newly expanding class attempted to distinguish themselves from ordinary people through not only money but also morality. And how, by developing what she called this ‘insipid decency’, they could judge themselves to be ‘better’ than the libertine aristocracy. This middle-class monopoly on morality had particularly implications for women, who were expected to be the virginal angels who set a good example to other women in society. By trumpeting the virtues of female purity, the middle classes wanted to ensure that working-class girls, despite their freedom to earn, would not be able to compete with middle-class daughters when it came to attracting the wealthiest husbands. By shrouding the paid labour of women in moral shame, this purity culture risked devaluing the contribution that countless ordinary women were making to the economy, while turning middle-class women into highly-valued, ‘precious’ commodities. Since work for middle-class women was considered nothing more than a stop-gap and could not be allowed to jeopardise their marriage prospect by causing their marriage prospects by causing their virginity to be treated as suspect, ‘decency’ came at the cost of women’s dependence on men. Indeed, the very ability of the middle classes to claim the moral high ground depended on the fact that preserving a young woman’s bodily modesty – ensuring that she was untouched by men – came at a price not only to her but also to her family, who had to ensure that she was chaperoned at all times, was taught separately to boys, and did not have to work alongside men to support herself financially. It was a cost that better-off families were able to bear, but one that working-class families, be design, found unaffordable. Morality, in other words, cost money. And Wollstonecraft had little time for it.
Another one from the book:
I had the good fortune of speaking with Dr Bateman for TOI Bookmark. As soon as the link is released, I will upload it here as well.
p.21-22 I remember that moment when my constructed, conditioned versions of ‘self’ started dissolving, the disguises started peeling off.
It was the last morning of the retreat, which also happened to be my forty0seventh birthday. The previous evening, I had been sitting on a bench facing the river and the hill on the other side of it. I could see the cave where George Harrison had once hung out with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. A quiet mist ascended from the water and I felt my eyes tearing. It may have been from sadness or joy, or both, or neither. The aquamarine water and the emerald green hill in the distance turned into Impressionist art in my blurred vision. I blinked a few time and saw a speck of tangerine in the distance. As it came closer, the object morphed into a monk.
Then, the bells started to chime. First one, and then many, in symphonic unison, little and big bells that hung at the entrances of temples all around, until they reached a crescendo, distant but also simultaneously vibrating within me.
I remembered what a qawwali singer at Ajmer Sharif had once told me: Music is always an offering in temples and churches and mausoleums.
‘This is why you find a bell at the entrance in places of worship. And this is why we sing in the dargah or in the gurudwara,’ he said, pausing to engage with his spittoon. ‘Even when a dacoit is about to attack someone, and he hears a temple bell, he will involuntarily stop in his tracks, even if only for a moment. This is kachcha jadoo, primordial magic.’ And back he went to his music, belting out more boisterous Allahoos.
It felt like I was in a timeless space. I could have been sitting there centuries ago, or at some point in the future. It didn’t really matter. Our version of the ‘self’ are all clay, mutable, and therefore capable of what psychologists call neuroplasticity: the human being’s inherent potential to transform into anything they wish to be. A rogue bandit can become a saint; a warrior king could become a Buddhist monk.
p. 75 Before women had access to therapy, they often turned to religion and gurus to help them navigate difficult families. My ma-in-law Hardevi battled the trauma of early widowhood and overbearing patriarchy by turning to god. But rather than sitting passively in front of a statue, she found her way to the non-ritualistic altar of Vedanta philosophy. she studied the Bhagvad Gita and translated it into Sindhi, patiently writing in the Arabic script, for she had attended school in pre-Partition Karachi.
Senior journalist and musician Namita Devidayal’s latest book, Tangerine: How to Read the Upanishads Without Giving Up Coffee is a memoir about her finding peace and tranquility and shedding unnecessary baggage. In short, it is the the self-help book that she avoids reading but wrote one herself. Honestly speaking, it is much more. It is deliciousness poured into words with generous sprinkling of wisdom and the elegant manner in which she straddles cultures while writing is superb. She makes visible that many of prefer to keep hidden. A sense of familiarity and ease to be who we are in this modern age. We live, borrow, and breathe many experiences — call them faith, call them culture, call them whatever you will — but many individuals prefer to either shush about different aspects of their life or not acknowledge it all. Spiritual sustenance being a very key part of Namita’s existence and that she does not shy away from discussing. It does create some awkward moments for her in social gatherings or even with her son when she wants to pursue her readings of the Upanishads and has many questions to ask, but given the times that we live in, people misinterpret her genuine queries and think that she has crossed over to the other side and is being irrational. She is not. She is interested. She wants to know. Hence, this book. It does not matter if you are an atheist or a believer, it is a book that you will devour and not forget in a hurry.
Tangerine is published by Westland Books. The exquisitely designedcover, with its peekaboo circles in the dust jacket highlighting the moonlit night sky and plenty of green vegetation has been designed by Saurabh Garge.
I interviewed Namita for TOI Bookmark. Here is the Spotify link:
I had been hearing all good things about The World With Its Mouth Open for a while now. It lives up to its expectations. It is never an easy task, especially for a debut writer, to produce eleven short stories and every single one of them unusual in its tone, literary style, and subject matter. I cannot help but wonder if Zahid Rafiq shifts effortlessly in his thinking and writing between two languages — English and Kashmiri. Reading the stories in English, the structured sentences, turn of phrases, use of literary techniques, experimentation with the form, and the ability to play with voices is of a confident writer and speaker of the language. Yet, when it comes to dialogue and some observations of the local terrain, particularly in the change of rhythm in the words, or even the repetition, I felt as if the author was relying considerably on Kashmiri for expression and structure of conveying emotion and feeling. There were times when it almost felt as if there were elements used from fairy tales and fables, to some degree even oral narratives. I can only attribute it to being evident when there was a slight shift in the rhythm and unexpectedness of what came in the text, with echoes of what I recalled from reading such fairy tales or being told stories by elders. When I posed this to Zahid, he said that he was unable to articulate now, long after the book has been published as to what exactly he was doing because he was so immersed in the storytelling that he did what he felt best. Nor can he understand where the variation in style came. It just did. We recorded a freewheeling conversation for an episode of TOI Bookmark. Unfortunately, it was on a day when Zahid was battling a viral fever and was under the weather.
I spoke to Zahid for TOI Bookmark. Here is the Spotify link:
Book blurb
In eleven stories, The World With Its Mouth Open maps the inner lives of the people of Kashmir as they walk the uncertain terrain of their days, fractured from years of war. From a shopkeeper’s encounter with a mannequin, to an expectant mother walking on a precarious road, to a young boy wavering between dreams and reality, to two dogs wandering the city, these stories weave in larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways. Although the stories circle the darker aspects of life, they are―at the same time―an attempt to run into life, into humor, into beauty, into another person who can offer refuge, if momentarily.
Zahid Rafiq’s The World With Its Mouth Open is a powerful collection announcing the arrival of a new voice that bears witness to the human condition with nuance, heart, humor, and incredible insight.
Zahid is a writer living in Srinagar, Kashmir. He did his BA at Kashmir University, studied journalism as a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. As a journalist, he wrote for Indian and international publications including The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, Vice, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, and others. Rafiq completed his MFA in fiction at Cornell University and has been a teaching fellow in the Humanities at Bard College.
The World with Its Mouth Open (published by Penguin India) is his first book.
Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai’s latest novel is The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny: A Novel. It is published by Penguin Random House India. It is a doorstopper of a novel and utterly delicious. It is ostensibly about Sonia and Sunny who are based in the USA. They are more or less of the same age. Coincidentally, their grandparents are neighbours in Allahabad or Prayagraj as it is now known. The older generation attempt to be matchmakers for their grandchildren, encouraging them to meet with the view to get married. This is the basic plotline. The story is spread over many, many years. It moves between continents, nations and cultures. It is a slow moving novel wherein the reader wishes to soak in every detail.
And wow! The details.
Kiran Desai inserts herself in the text, in the good old-fashioned form of storytelling — the authorial narrative. She does not hold herself back. She provides a running commentary on society, the shifting political winds, socio-economic disparities, etc. Interestingly, it is a big fat novel with both men and women characters explored at length. It is not possible to say that this is a woman-oriented or a male-oriented novel, a peg that many seek in contemporary fiction. In reality, we co-exist side by side with a range of experiences. Yet, Kiran Desai’s uncanny ability to observe sharply, assess, and articulate on behalf of the characters is worth reading. It is a phenomenal cast of characters, across the socio-economic spectrum, in India and abroad. She writes about them, but does not judge them. That, if need be, is left to the reader. I had the strong feeling that with her art intersects life in more ways than one.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is written from the perspective of the desi author who also has the good fortune of seeing with the eyes of a foreigner. She left India at the age of 16. First she moved with her mother, Anita Desai, to the UK and later to the USA, where they now reside. Kiran Desai spent nearly two decades writing this story. She pared it down from 5000+ pages to the current length of approximately 700 pages. Extraordinary confidence given that publishers are lamenting the dwindling book market sizes, with readers rapidly vanishing, in all likelihood succumbing to the internet and mindless reels. So, to create a novel that is of this magnitude, with even the main protagonists meandering in and out of the landscape, requires a remarkable sense of conviction in one’s storytelling. In this case, it holds true. It is a novel that will remain with the reader for a very long time.
Much will be said about the book from today, as it is the day when the embargo on writing about the novel publicly is lifted. Apart from which, it has been longlisted for The Booker Prize 2025. The shortlist announcement is on 23 Sept 2025. This book is expected to make the cut. Let’s see.
I read the ARC in less than three days. It would have probably been quicker if life had not interrupted. The last time I read big fat novels like this was when I read War and Peace and A Suitable Boy. But those were many decades ago, when there were fewer distractions and reading was all that we did in our leisure time.
I interviewed Kiran Desai for TOI Bookmark. Ours was the first interview that she did in India even if it is published later than those that appeared today. As soon as the link is available, I will post it here.
And here it is. Published today, 23 Sept 2025, a few hours before the shortlist announcement is made.:
Manish Gaekwad was the only child of a courtesan, so he grew up in the kothas or a brothel. Courtesans would be defined as prostitutes but usually one man (patron) took care of her and her children. The evening festivies inevitably began with a mujra or a performance. It included singing and dancing by the courtesan (s), accompanied by their musicians, and watched by an audience consisting of their patrons. Manish Gaekwad was sent by his mother to the hills to study where he acquired an education in English. His mother did her best to ensure that he did not get stuck in poverty and on the margins of society.
Writing two memoirs in quick succession, one about his mother and the other about himself, is quite a feat. There is plenty of linguistic play in his storytelling, with loads of Hindi that is also made available in English but it is almost as if both languages have equal status in his mind. Memoirs inevitably are selective storytelling about a person’s life and sometimes of their community, their context. In Manish Gaekwad’s books, there is a continuity of narrative but at the same time many incidents seem episodic. As if they had to be written down and shared. There is also this emphasis on telling his mother’s story, making her life visible, a woman who lives in the shadow of society, but her son gives her a voice, a character. In his own story, it is not necessarily a coming-of-age story but it is certainly a juxtaposition of the public and private worlds in which the idea of masculinity is explored. In the public spaces, the men and boys linked to the courtesans are encouraged to figure out their relationships and if need be, have the necessary scuffle to assert their dominance. In the shadows of the kotha, it is predatory and seeing a young boy/man like Manish, they prey upon him and sexually assault him more than once. Both these texts are seeped in violence — whether the energy required by the fittest to survive or the violent “love” and its multiple shades. Ultimately, these books attempt to share unique experiences but one cannot help but think of it also as performance art. But, then isn’t most storytelling?
I spoke to him for TOI Bookmark. Here is the Spotify link:
Manish Gaekwad is a journalist and author. He has reported for Scroll and Mid-Day, and has contributed to The Hindu and other publications as a freelancer. His literary works include the novel Lean Days and The Last Courtesan, a memoir of his mother. He co-wrote the Netflix series She with Imtiaz Ali, script-consulted on Badhaai Do and served as a senior script creative at Red Chillies Entertainment.
Both books have been published by HarperCollins India.
The dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life.
In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster’s flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France’s royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic, ever-changing swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible–how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species? Stunned by life’s diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process, they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, on humanity’s role in shaping the fate of our planet, and on humanity itself.
The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolyte explorers he called “apostles” (only half of whom returned alive), gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate and homo sapiens–but he also denied species change and promulgated racist pseudo-science. Buffon coined the term reproduction, formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, and argued passionately against prejudice. It was a clash that, during their lifetimes, Buffon seemed to be winning. But their posthumous fates would take a very different turn.
With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
I interviewed Jason for TOI Bookmark. Here is the Spotify link:
Jason Roberts is the author of the national bestseller A Sense of the World, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, and School Library Journal. The winner of the Van Zorn Prize for fiction (founded and awarded by Michael Chabon), he is a contributor to McSweeney’s, The Believer, The Rumpus, and other publications, as well as editor of the bestselling 642 Things to Write About series. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Every Living Thingwon the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography 2025. It is published by Quercus Books/ Hachette India.
Nepali writer Weena Pun’s writings have appeared in Himal Southasian, the Kathmandu Post, The Record, “House of Snow: An Anthology of the Greatest Writing About Nepal”, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Cornell University. Her debut novel “Kanchhi” is published by Hachette India.
It was a pleasure speaking with Weena Pun on TOI Bookmark.
Here is a snippet of our conversation:
“…it was not easy. It took me a lot of drafts to make it seem like the scenes wrote themselves. Language was a problem. If I had to write a dialect, I would write it in Nepali first in longhand, then I would later translate it and then go back and edit it to ensure that they flowed well. “
Spotify link is given below.
Book blurb
In the misty foothills of Torikhola, Kanchhi, the only child of her mother, Maiju, refuses to play by the stifling rules of her hamlet. She befriends boys, writes letters to them, and opposes the shame imposed on her swelling ambitions and curiosity. There is a life beyond the forlorn valleys and gorges, and Kanchhi is intrigued by the possibilities. One cold November morning she leaves home – with two bags and some millet bread Maiju prepares for her. That, however, is the last anybody sees of her.
Now, a decade after Kanchhi’s puzzling disappearance, echoes of her defiance grow thin. Life has moved on. For one, the civil war has arrived at the hamlet’s doorstep. And yet, much has remained still. Maiju lights a lamp in front of the gods and feverishly prays for her daughter’s return. And the villagers, uncertain of what befell Kanchhi, continue to debate. Did she run off, chasing the highs and lights of the big city? Or did the cruelties of the ongoing civil war engulf her whole?
In this impressively sure-footed debut, Weena Pun brings to life the political and social tremors stirring the valleys of Nepal at the turn of the millennium, as well as the tenacious, tragedy-riven women of the time. A delicate and finely wrought saga, Kanchhi is an intimate exploration of vulnerable girlhood in turbulent territories.
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TOI Bookmark is a weekly podcast on literature and publishing. TOI is an acronym for the Times of India (TOI) which is the world’s largest newspaper and India’s No. 1 digital news platform with over 3 billion page views per month. The TOI website is one of the most visited news sites in the world with 200 million unique monthly visitors and about 1.6 billion monthly page views. TOI is the world’s largest English newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 4 million copies, across many editions, and is read daily by approximately 13.5 million readers. The podcasts are promoted across all TOI platforms. I have recorded more than 145+ sessions with Jnanpith, Padma Bhushan, and Padma Shree awardees, International Booker Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, Women’s Prize for Fiction, Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize, Stella Prize, AutHer Awards, Erasmus Prize, BAFTA etc.
Some of the authors who have been interviewed are: Banu Mushtaq, Deepa Bhashti, Samantha Harvey, Jenny Erpenbeck, Michael Hoffman, Paul Murray, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Hisham Matar, Anita Desai, Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzro, Venki Ramakishnan, Siddhartha Deb, Elaine Feeney, Manjula Padmanabhan, Edwin Frank, Jonathan Escoffery, Joya Chatterji, Arati Kumar-Rao, Paul Lynch, Dr Kathryn Mannix, Cat Bohannon, Sebastian Barry, Shabnam Minwalla, Paul Harding, Ayobami Adebayo, Pradeep Sebastian, G N Devy, Angela Saini, Manav Kaul, Amitav Ghosh, Damodar Mauzo, Boria Majumdar, Geetanjali Mishra, William Dalrymple, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Andrew Miller, Dr Rachel Clarke, and Annie Ernaux.
