The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

My nani’s nickname was Bokul—like the flower. In English, it’s called the Spanish Cherry or Mimusops elengi, though no translation quite captures its softness.

Every night, a market forms near the mill gate. When it’s time for that market to close, Fulbanu stands on the high bank of the pond, waiting for her husband’s return.

Approximately 105 people die every minute globally. This is nothing but data until in some specific wretched minute, someone dear to us adds a plus one to that digit. When those we love die, their losses dig enormous holes in our beings. Though invisible to the physical eye, these freshly cut hollows ache like any deep wound would, they bleed out more blood than we carry in our veins. A severe soreness spreads over us without any remedies, without offering us a recovery timeline. There is no telling when grieving ends or if it ever actually does.

The quote above seems to capture the heart of this novel set in a near-future dystopian Kolkata rendered uninhabitable by political corruption, inequality, and the ominous package of climate crisis–floods, famine, overheating.

Do you remember the sunset on the 18th of July? What colour was it?

The bus stop was empty as usual, I sat waiting for a sight of one. Then he came. A man in a faded red shirt with a bag hanging on his back, running as if the devil himself had taken out a lease on his shadow.

Saiyara didn’t wave a flag to voice her rights on the streets. She had never marched in a protest line, never chanted beneath the dark blanket of smoke-heavy skies. Her revolution was quieter, and it carried a little soul swaddled in a bassinet beside her, traces of milk on her lips and dreaming

The 2025 Booker Prize longlist was revealed on Tuesday, July 29, showcasing a diverse ensemble of literary brilliance, with novels that spanned continents, genres, and narrative styles

Literary experts often caution against writing a novel immediately after a major political upheaval, arguing that personal involvement may cloud objectivity.

Graffiti has long played a powerful role in revolutions around the world. From the walls of Paris in 1968 to the slogans of the Arab Spring, street art has served as one of the most immediate and accessible forms of resistance.

Review of ‘Jodi Lokkho Thake Otut: Shafolyer Khola Koushol’ (Anyaprokash, 2025) by Asif Iqbal

Summer has imprinted crow’s feet under my eyes, .Yet I have aged only a quarter. .That’s was when .I dunked myself—starting with the crown of my head—into the ocean where The southern sun resides, to imprint upon my face its sheen, .rhythm of miracles, and to honour it wi

Always the same whining about the distances, always the same

The air tasted of burnt sugar and broken vows–sweetness clinging to the char. It began with a whisper, then the slow, inevitable searing of what we believed was solid ground.

Mira presses her thumb on the cracked power button of her phone.

The cats don't always understand the human specifics, but they recognise sadness. They notice routines. And most of all, they stay

Review of Mitali Chakravarty’s ‘From Calcutta to Kolkata: A City of Dreams: Poems’ (Hawakal Publishers Pvt Ltd, 2025)

and for every grave / a firefly burns / and for every grave / Dhaka never learns

Scorching in a way the April sun never was. / Scorching in a way a fever never feels. / It wasn't just grief

As Fulbanu waited for Syed Ali, she thought about her only son, Suruj. She remembered that Suruj was the first man among five neighbouring villages to acquire his bachelor's degree