Author Karuna Ezara Parikh Shares 20 Indian Books She Loved In 2024

Set in Telangana in post-Partition India, this sweeping and ambitious debut novel is centered around one family, but delves into caste politics, Marxism, the Naxalite movement, class warfare, women's journeys navigating life in a newly independent India, sibling rivalry, and of course, love. Historical, political, and human, all at once, I loved reading this one.

This slim Wodehouse Prize-shortlisted novel is a dark comedy that will have you either giggling or squirming at its beautifully observed and highly relatable story. Set in Trivandrum, it follows what happens when a middle-class family discovers that a video of their eldest son cavorting with his girlfriend in a public park, has been leaked on the internet.

Set in the United States, this is an immigrant story unlike any other I’ve read. It’s a coming-of-age novel, but also a tender, raw, queer anthem, capitalist quashing, with wit-filled perfect prose. Fiercely authentic, it explores violence, loss, anger, friendship and family and how they intertwine.

This is quite possibly one of the top three books I read this year. A gripping debut set in Vaiga, a village in the foothills of the Western Ghats, the book opens to the rainiest season the region has seen in years. It then moves masterfully through the short timespan of the title, using voices from members of the community to reveal a terrifying tale that examines society and mob mentality.

This marvelous story is full of anecdote and quirk, and brims with unexpected emotion too. It chronicles the life of little Maria, who grows up with her toddy-loving grandfather in a Syrian-Christian community in Kerala. From clever talking dogs to demented aunts, cameos by Jesus Christ and rogue saints, this is a lush rollercoaster of a book, beneath which lies a larger question of mental health.

Set in the 18th century, Loot glides from the Mysore courts of Tipu Sultan to Europe, and across the burgeoning British Empire. It is the story of a talented young woodcarver Abbas, who is brough to Tipu’s court by chance, where he is apprenticed to a legendary French clockmaker to build a giant tiger automaton. What unfolds is a spellbinding historical novel that traces the bloody history of colonialism across two continents and fifty years.

This is the story of two young people living in contemporary Delhi. There’s Mayank, plodding away in a right-wing media content creator’s office, and there’s Nisha, who’s recently moved to the city from the hills and works as a salesgirl in an upscale mall. When their paths collide via the internet, what is revealed is far deeper than one man’s lack of judgment. Terribly current and full of wildly intelligent metaphors, this tightly woven novella is an important book for the times we live in.

Set in Israel and Palestine, this is an incredibly nuanced and poetic story, told through the journey of Ruth, a forty year old woman who works as a caregiver for an elderly Jewish man in Nazareth. Through her we encounter various forms of Judaism, the rifts within Israeli society, the plight of the Palestinians, and also the difficulty of the life of a female migrant worker.

Are you even a reader in 2024, if you haven’t attempted this tome? That said, it really is a beauty. Tracing a century of life along different coasts of southern India, this mammoth read goes faster than you think, mostly because you can’t put it down! Full of surprises that I won’t reveal here, it’s the perfect thing to sit down with on a winter afternoon.

This spare and honest piece of non-fiction came to me in the year I most needed it. Siddharth, who is known for his fiction (The Lost Flamingos of Bombay and The Last Song of Dusk were both reissued this year as well), attempts here to make sense of what we face when we are grieving by drawing on a string of personal losses of his mother, his father and his beloved dog in quick succession. Accompanied by his elegant photography, the book contains wisdom that will ensure it is a companion for several moments in a lifetime.

Blending folklore, myth, magic realism and actual events, this feminist incantation brings to life, Nepal’s political history and turns a square eye on the slippery subjects of racism and patriarchy. Smriti delivers truths in a marvellous, mocking tone that is so often the flesh of female friendships in private. The book weaves together three generations of one family’s women with immense care. It’s no surprise it’s been listed for every major award in India this year!

A book both beautiful and brutal, political and deeply personal. This memoir looks at Chowdhary’s life from when she was 16 and faced the 2002 riots in Gujarat. It also traces the past of her multigenerational Muslim family to India’s brave but bloody origins. In it, she bears witness to the lives of ordinary Muslims through the lens of grace. She collects lost histories, examines myths, opens up the secrets of a family, and begins a conversation with a democratic country, about erasure and what justice is.

How can you not read Anita Desai’s first offering in over a decade? At 87, Desai proved to us this year that she most certainly still has that magic touch. Rosarita is a profound exploration of the inner lives of women. Set in Mexico, it follows an Indian woman, Bonita, who begins an inadvertent search for her mother, whose life she now recollects through the inconsistent veil of memory.

Though this grand novel is coming up on its second anniversary this December, I revisited it recently and found myself swept up once more in its detail and magnificence. If you haven’t read it yet, a delightful read is waiting for you. In short, the story follows Samir, a Hindu perfumer, and Firdaus, a Muslim calligrapher, through a country’s severance, the tides of history, and eventually, across the world. The kind of tale that engulfs you and leaves you breathless and teary-eyed.

One of the bravest books to have been published in recent years, this takes a look at the Indian present, through the lived experiences and voices of political prisoners. Combining legal analysis, first-hand testimonies and political history, the book explores what makes resistance – both within and outside of jails – and how the erosion of rights, and destruction of hard-won institutions takes place when a system is primed for particularly this. Though I could only read this in small doses, I recommend it so strongly.

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, this book explains so much of what we’ve all been struggling to understand about AI. Murgia, the AI Editor at The Financial Times, looks into the rise of this new entity in our lives, and what it means for us as individuals, as well as a larger society. Through the voices of ordinary people living in places far removed from Silicon Valley, she explores the impact of flawed and often exploitative technologies on citizens of the world. Scariest of all is how she confirms what we fear – how if we are not careful, AI does stand to strip away our collective and individual sense of agency and shatter our illusion of free will. But fear not, she also serves us a plan for resistance and how we must reclaim our humanity.

Witty and revealing, this “passive-aggressive history of travel” looks at what it means to be a joyous traveller when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change. Heavy description? Yes, but somehow, it isn’t miserable at all. Habib traces the power dynamics that underlie tourism and asks who gets to travel and who gets to write about the experience. She also weaves in personal anecdotes ranging from her childhood spending family vacations in India, to what it means to be an immigrant. Most charmingly, she unpacks the history of a travelling world through artefacts and elements. 

A brilliant book in which Iyengar explores the lives of the Doms of Banaras. A Dalit sub-caste, the Doms are designated by tradition to perform the Hindu rites of cremation. In essence, they have ownership of the sacred fire, without which, it is believed the Hindu soul cannot achieve moksha. And yet, this community is still condemned to the lowest order in the caste hierarchy, and its members are treated as untouchables. Iyengar reveals the difficulties in the daily existence of this community, in a book that is equal parts exhilarating and heartbreaking.

The book begins with the old postmaster, Valmiki Rao, taking us through his memories, most of them from around his residence, a crumbling Bombay chawl. He takes us back to the 90s and begins telling us about the tense days surrounding the Babri Masjid demolition and the aftermath that followed, particularly in his city. He talks of the local drunk Ramu, his tensions with the neighbourhood gangster Ravi Anna, and their fight over a beautiful girl, Janaki. If the names sound familiar, you’ve got it, this is the Ramayana, but set in 1990s Bombay. Buckle up! I promise you’re in for a ride.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t have a single poetry book on the list, and this one just arrived at my doorstep with a smashing cover. Thayil’s first collection of poems since 2008, this book is a real treat. As biting and tender as ever, it’s the perfect gift to give this Christmas, if your family likes their tea with a touch of arsenic, like I do.