From deeply personal genre-bending narratives and non-fiction that interrogates culture with nuance to whodunnit adventures, Bengaluru’s writers have churned out several memorable books this year. As the year draws to a close, here’s a roundup of some that left an impression.
The fourth instalment in Harini Nagendra’s bestselling Bangalore Detectives Club series, the book returns to free-spirited protagonist Kaveri through another case. What starts off as an investigation into a woman’s murder in 1920s Bangalore takes Kaveri to the coffee plantations of Coorg, where a series of mysterious leopard attacks are terrorising the residents. It’s a cosy murder mystery, but also a story that engages with the truth of ecological destruction that came with colonisation.
A memoir, travelogue, family history and fiction all at once, Bengaluru poet Jeet Thayil explores questions of identity and belonging through the lives of his parents – Ammu and George (veteran journalist TJS George). Written lyrically and in a non-linear format, this ‘documentary novel’ pieces together stories of the couple’s early days living in a small Bombay apartment; George through his days of reporting in Vietnam in the thick of war and the family’s constant moving from city to city in India and around the world.
Set in the early 1990s as Bengaluru began to transform from a sleepy garden city to a bustling metropolis, Water Days unravels the threads of the city’s changing social fabric. As security guard Raghavendra tries to solve the mystery behind a teenage girl’s death in his neighbourhood populated by locals and migrants from across India, he navigates complexities caused by language, class and police indifference.
A gripping work of narrative non-fiction, Rama Bhima Soma explores the evolution of Karnataka’s cultural, literary and political history throughout the 20th century. Through reportage and essays about stalwarts like Kuvempu, UR Ananthamurthy, MM Kalburgi, Shivaram Karanth, the popular serials of TN Seetharam, the fall of socialism, and much more – Raghavan tells the sweeping story of the making of contemporary Karnataka.