There’s a lot to be concerned about over the past year. As far as I remember, politics was the most divisive. War and genocide is raging and women’s rights are under attack from Afghanistan to America. The rampant crime and violence against women and the grim reality that home is the most unsafe place for many of us.
And then there were the books.
Provocative, lyrical, brutal, honest, thought-provoking, entertaining, satirical, heartbreaking. What were some of the best books of 2024? My four judges are prolific readers and writers. They come from journalism and publishing.
Incidentally, since none of my Fab Four have mentioned any fictional works, I’ll add a small personal contribution. Rosarita by Anita Desai (Picador, 499) There is a slim novel that lay near my bed for several days, until one morning I picked it up and read it to the end, amazed by the beauty and elegance of its writing. It stirred memory and desire, the universal story of so many women who lose themselves because of marriage and family.
Neelanjana S Roy
The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian, by Neha Dixit (Juggernaut) 799)
A sensitive and comprehensive portrait of women’s work and existence in Delhi, a harsh city, emerges from the life of a Muslim woman.
Wild Women: Seekers, Heroes, and Goddesses in Sacred Indian Poetry, edited by Arundhati Subramaniam (Penguin Random House, 999)
Sacred, sensual poetry of seekers, explorers and mystics spanning centuries of Indian history.
Imprisonment: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India, by Alpa Shah (HarperCollins) 799)
The criminalization of dissent, unjust imprisonment and the power of the state are told through the story of the Bhima Koregaon Six.
Sakshi Malik and Jonathan Selvaraj (Juggernaut, 799)
An inspiring memoir about a champion wrestler overcoming poverty and sabotage to pursue a sport where he found meaning and purpose.
(Author of The Wildings (2012), The Hundred Names of Darkness (2013), The Girl Who Ate Books (2016) and, most recently, Black River (2022), which was named one of The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2024 The year it was published in the US, Nilanjana Roy also writes a column on books for The Financial Times.)
Neha Dixit
This Land We Call Home: A Story of Family, Caste, Transformation, and Modern India, Nusrat F. by Jafari (Penguin Random House, 699)
Nusrat’s book deals with India and the complexity of family. She effectively addresses questions of origin and identity and how they are affected by politics in the outside world. His book is a masterpiece in telling inter-generational stories.
From the Hanging Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerwada, by Sudha Bhardwaj (Juggernaut) 799)
Sudha spoke about the 76 prisoners she met in the jail where she was kept in solitary confinement. She complicates the conversation on freedom for women both behind and outside bars. She raises questions about the existence of women in India and the structured inequality of the system in which women live. Despite his personal suffering, his empathetic writing is poignant and inspiring.
India’s Forgotten Country: A View from the Margins, by Bela Bhatia (Penguin Random House) 1,299)
Bela’s collection of writings from the most remote and marginalized corners of the country highlights the arbitrariness of violence against India’s least resourceful and poorest people. Her writing powerfully connects class, gender and geography and tells us how people are systematically invisible.
The Personal Is Political: An Activist’s Memoir Aruna Roy (HarperCollins, 599)
Aruna’s book is a lesson in documentation that is often lacking for those who are less resourceful. The stories of his activism and the people he has worked with are a reminder of how much one can learn about the world through practice.
Semiotics of Rape: Sexual Subjectivity and Violation in Rural India Rupal Ojha (Tongue, 403 on Amazon)
Roopal’s book pushes us to look beyond terms like victim and survivor and how the language around cases of sexual violence often solidifies stereotypes and patriarchal systems. It is a much-needed reminder of how women insist on their autonomy and refuse to be defined by violence.
(Award-winning freelance journalist Neha Dixit’s debut book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian (Juggernaut, 799) It has been causing a stir since its publication earlier this year.)
Ghazala Wahab
Imprisonment: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India, by Alpa Shah (HarperCollins) 799)
Given the current political climate in India, this is a very brave book where the author balances things and presents both sides. Actually, Alpa Shah has written how these people were implicated, how evidence was planted and how despite there being no case, they continued to be tortured for political reasons.
Shades of Nationalism: A Memoir of Dreams, Hopes and Betrayals, by Nandita Haksar (Speaking Tiger) 599)
These memoirs are a continuation of the first part where Nandita Haksar talks about food and taste. In the second part she talks about her introduction to all aspects of nationalism. There is a certain naivety in her optimism as a teenager and her ideas about how India should move forward, but she is also very honest. As soon as he reaches adulthood, he begins to collide with reality, due to which his despair and disillusionment begins to increase. His book is as much a memoir as it is a brief history of independent India and its struggle for justice, equality and secularism.
(Co-founder of Force magazine, which looks at issues ranging from homeland security to religious extremism, Ghazala Wahab’s 2021 book, Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India, was a best-seller that won two books of the year.) His second book, The Hindi Heartland, is scheduled to be published in 2025.
Urvashi Butalia
The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian, by Neha Dixit (Juggernaut) 799) I love it for the story it tells about a woman – she could be any poor woman – and it has a deep insight into the many exploitation, violence, oppression, but ultimately resistance.
The Obscenity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality and Humanity in Modern India, by Shailaja Paik (Navayan, 500)
This book about the lives of tamasha dancers in Maharashtra through the lens of caste explores the complex relationship between sexually charged public performances by Dalit women, the non-recognition of their labour, labeling it as obscene and, therefore, morally reprehensible. exposes.
Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anti-Caste Intellectuals, by Gail Omvedt (Navayan, 292 on Amazon)
From Chokamela, Kabir to Phule, the visions and utopias expressed by people with marginalized identities and how they saw the ideal society.
Revolutionary Desires: Women, Communism and Feminism in India, by Ania Loomba (Routledge, 5,012 on Amazon)
Set in the 1920s, when communism was becoming a vocal entity in Indian politics, Loomba looks at the lives of communist women and how they were shaped by the cultural and political context.
Secularism as Misdirection: Critical Thoughts from the Global South by Nivedita Menon (Permanent Black, 1,095)
I’m only half way through this book which questions our received notions about secularism and how we interpret it as development and progress, which hides important issues like caste. It examines how, over the last 30 or 40 years, secularism discourse has used the women’s movement and asks whether we can rethink secularism and view it through the lens of gender and caste.
Toote Pankhon Se Parwaaz Tak, by Sumitra Mehrol (English translation published by Zubaan in 2025, Hindi paperback, 290 on Amazon)
I am in the process of translating this book from Hindi to English. Sumitra is a disabled, Dalit and woman writer who sees life through these triple oppressions. This book is a very unusual memoir, far-reaching and reflective. I found it extremely moving.
(One of India’s leading historians of the women’s movement and, in particular, Partition, Urvashi Butalia, co-founder of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, now heads Zubaan, also a feminist imprint.) She has published several Has edited collections including Indian Women’s Short Stories, Speaking Peace: Voices of Kashmir Women, Women and Hindu Rights, and Partition: The Long Shadow of Partition (2015). From the Partition of India (also available as a paperback) won the Oral History Book Association Award.)
(What were your favorite books written by women in 2024? Write to me at: namita.bhandare@gmail.com ,
