A Deconstructed Heart – Shaheen Ashraf-Ahmed
Mirza is a middle-aged Indian college professor whose wife has left him. He moves out of his house into a tent in his back garden, where he sets up an outdoor classroom and serves tea to his kind but bewildered neighbors. He is visited by the irritable spirit of his long-dead teacher, Khan Sahib, who is befuddled by the dysfunctions of modern life.
In the north of England, Mirza’s niece, Amal, is finishing up her last year of college before she is expected to join her parents in their new home in India. Asked by her father to talk her uncle back to his senses, she moves into Mirza’s house, and they soon are connected by their shared loneliness.
She meets Rehan, Mirza’s student, and is intrigued by the path of certainty he has built over his own loss and loneliness – a certainty that is threatened by his growing feelings for her. When Rehan disappears, Amal’s suffering forces Mirza to face the world once more.
Together, Mirza and Amal must come to a new understanding of what it means to be an immigrant family when the old traditions have unraveled.
Eleventh-century Japan: After a difficult but successful assignment as provisional governor of Eichigo, Akitada Sugawara is finally allowed to return to Heian Kyo. But instead of a triumphant homecoming accompanied by his beautiful wife and young son, Akitada must ride ahead of his entourage to the sickbed of his dying mother. Fading light and a steady downpour interrupt his journey, forcing him to take refuge in a temple where a brilliantly illustrated hell screen and a piercing cry disturb his restless sleep.
Caught between two cultures, three childhood friends—Chila, Sunita, and Tania—are expected to revert to being obedient mothers and wives. But their world explodes when Tania makes a documentary, starring Chila and Sunita, about contemporary urban Indian Life. The result is an unforgettable story of friendship, marriage, betrayal, and the difficult choices woman face.
Saradindu Bandyopadyay’s immortal detective Byomkesh Bakshi has enjoyed immense popularity for several decades. From being a household name in the Calcutta of 1930s, when he first created, to a popular face on TV in the 1990s, Byomkesh along with his friend-cum-foil Ajit is perhaps the best-loved of India’s literary detectives. This collection brings together three of his classic whodunnits.
Fourteen-year-old Sarah Rexford, half-Japanese and half- American, feels like an outsider when she visits her family in Japan. She quickly learns that in traditional Kyoto, personal boundaries are firmly drawn and actions are not always what they appear.
