Title: Drifting into Worlds

Goal: To write a piece on Chandrahas Choudhury’s Clouds around the theme ‘Epiphany’, drawing from an author interview

Execution: Talked about the book’s unusual narrative structure, and the novel as a unique space for conversations between the writer and reader

Title: The Imperfect Layout to the Imperfect Mystery

Goal: To write a piece on Jane De Suza’s The Spy Who Lost Her Head, a clever take on the crime novel, drawing from an author interview

Execution: Based on the theme ‘Error’, focused on the author’s unconventional choices, observational humour and deliberate play with language and storytelling

Title: The Inheritance of Loss

Goal: To write a piece on Aparna Karthikeyan’s Nine Rupees an Hour: Disappearing Livelihoods of Tamil Nadu around the theme ‘Legacy’, drawing from an author interview

Execution: Explored the challenges in the author’s research process and the book’s gripping human element

Title: Pathways of the Mind

Goal: To write a piece on Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, drawing from an interview with translator Marilyn Booth

Execution: Explored the novel’s use of interwoven narrative threads, the poetic quality of the English text and its in-depth exploration of Omani society

Title: Once Upon a Reteller

Goal: To write a piece on Michael Cunningham’s A Wild Swan and Other Tales around the theme ‘Games’, drawing from an author interview

Execution: Focused on the author’s sense of play in exploring the innumerable ‘what-ifs’ of fairy tales, and the marrying of contrasts to create a congruous whole

Title: The Presence of Displacement

Goal: To write a piece on Amitav Ghosh’s 1988 novel The Shadow Lines around the theme of ‘Ghosts’

Execution: Explored links between the ghosts of memory and imagination, mutating geographical borders, and the author’s fluid prose

Title: Enter the Mind

Goal: To write a piece on Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom around the theme of ‘Tapestry’, drawing from an author interview

Execution: Explored the interplay between fiction and autobiography, and interpreted the cover artwork as depicting the mind’s unique codes and patterns

Title: Free Wheeling

Goal: To write a piece on Mridula Koshy’s novel Bicycle Dreaming, drawing from an author interview

Execution: Focused on the author’s ability to lead us through vivid physical and mental spaces; and on the use of the English language to capture the realities of Delhi’s urban poor

Title: Benyamin’s Jasmine Days Asks Uncomfortable Questions About South Asian Migrants in the Gulf (see link)

Goal: To write a piece on Benyamin’s Jasmine Days (translated from the Malayalam), winner of the 2018 JCB Prize for Literature

Execution: Drew parallels between the protagonist’s experience of rebellion and the author’s own experience of the 2011 Bahrain uprising, linked to personal perspectives from my time in the Gulf

Title: Role Reversal

Goal: To write a critical piece on Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, drawing from an interview with translator Jonathan Wright

Execution: Focused on the novel’s chromatic glimpses of life in Iraq, political symbolisms and the process of translation