Must read books on India: Fiction and Non Fiction: Part 1

I always said I would never make a list, that I’d shoot myself before I do but I came across a disastrous one recently and feel compelled to do this.

I’m going to do a time to time guide of books by Indians or non Indians, on Indians and about Indians.

(I will do a photography one soon too.)

So this is largely a serious list in the sense that it’s for those seriously interested in and about India. They’re not stupendously heavy to read however. R.K. Narayan and The Postmaster, for example was literature we read in middle school even.

I strongly recommend RK Narayan’s Malgudi Days, possibly the only Indian fiction writer I still re read. A series of short stories that creates a large universe, kind of what Munro does. Stay with the micro that put together, tells a larger, more macro story of the world.

This first list consists of mostly older writer- in fiction at least. Names you’ll have heard.

As you can see, the list is very scant. New Indian fiction in English is very mediocre.

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