The Indian-Francophone writer Ari Gautier on Black and Dalit struggles, indentured labour, and the little-known histories of French colonialism in South India
The International Booker Prize-winning author-translator duo discuss their latest book – and why its story, based loosely around the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, remains deeply relevant today
Noorjahan Bose’s memoir of her pioneering life recounts a host of stories born of female autonomy – all while spanning Partition, the Bangla Language Movement, the Liberation War and the post-independence history of Bangladesh
In Mustang, in the Nepali Himalaya, archaeological finds offer staggering insight into the pre-Buddhist history of human civilisation in the Himalaya – yet this past is being obliterated by neglect and folly
The past struggles of brown and black immigrants have brought improvement in racial equality in the United Kingdom – but recent books make clear that British liberalism’s claims of substantive progress are overly optimistic
India and China’s close interactions over the centuries – literary or otherwise – make for important and interesting reference points, but much work needs to be done to address the failings and inadequacies of comparing the two
In ‘Waiting on Empire’, Arunima Datta resurrects the largely forgotten travelling ayahs – one of the many groups of Southasian migrant workers in the British Empire
A conversation with Siddhartha Deb on recording the histories of India’s present and the dystopian futures of climate crisis and authoritarianism in his fiction and nonfiction
Three recent volumes show historians moving beyond assumptions of a bounded Subcontinent, contextualising the 20th century by centring regional and local politics that complicate nation-state narratives
A conversation with novelist V V Ganeshananthan about the books that define her latest novel ‘Brotherless Night’ and women’s writing on Sri Lanka’s long history of anti-Tamil violence
‘Dust on the Throne’ focusses on grossly overlooked aspects of Buddhism in Southasia and beyond, highlighting casteless and anti-caste legacies connecting ancient and modern Buddhists
