Nishant Injam’s debut story collection The Best Possible Experience (2024) features a cast of characters between India and the United States who are often homesick for another world: a world that could be a physical or a metaphorical distance away, a world they aspire to with the burdens of a life unfulfilled. By Karan Madhok

Prashanth Srivatsa’s The Spice Gate as a spectacular debut fantasy, a feast to the readers who slurp on worldbuilding, while also making them wonder if a freer world is possible. By Akankshya Abismruta

In Aparna Sanyal’s Instruments of Torture, each tale is a deep dive into the abyss of human suffering, portraying characters who are not just victims of their circumstances but also complex individuals grappling with the aftermath of their traumas. By Namrata

Vinita Agrawal takes the role of a ‘poetic journalist’ in Eartha, in verses that spark with compassion for all living entities on the planet. By Tansy Troy

The dystopian universe of Varun Thomas Mathew’s The Black Dwarves of the Good Little Bay (2019) is a prophetic chronicling of crisis as a condition of existence, and the contingency of truth as a mode of knowing or bearing witness to crisis. By Paromita Patranobish

“I was chasing this desire to pin down the inexplicable when I wrote Mad Sisters, but acknowledge that it is inexplicable. It sort-of grew in the novel, intwining with the cosmos and the idea of the sublime, and how the interpersonal is the tether that keeps us sane—and perhaps caged.” By Akankshya Abismruta

K. Vaishali won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar this year for her memoir Homeless: Growing Up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India. She speaks about this latest honour, inclusivity in Indian publishing, and the challenges of revealing the sensitive parts of her life to the world. By Namrata

Sanket Mhatre poems in A City Full of Sirens address and interrogate the relations between ‘the eternal’ and ‘the transient’ in a nuanced manner, tearing into the expansive multiplicities of singular moments. By Ankush Banerjee

Published in India’s 75th year of Independence, Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (2022) presents unique and diverse voices from the diaspora, with poems that are a sustained discussion with history, oneself, the environment, myth, science, and relationships. By Dustin Pickering

In The Solitude of a Shadow, Devibharathi presents a complex picture of a vengeance-seeking narrator fractured by trauma, caste, and identity crisis. By Sneha Pathak

Amitava Kumar’s The Yellow Book: A Traveller's Diary (2023), conceptualizes the journal itself as an art object, where the act of journaling becomes a form of artistic practice. By Pranavi Sharma

Kiriti Sengupta’s Oneness (2024) is a condensed capsule of poetry, one that weaves multiple strains of being into an organic unity. With his vivid and sonic juxtapositions, the compositions in the new collection both obfuscate and enlighten the reader. By Ajanta Paul