The Attack by Yasmina Khadra
A world at war with terrorism around him but Dr. Amin Jaafari, a Palestinian in Tel Aviv with Israeli citizenship is a surgeon whom the city loves and honours. His insulated upper class life changes when a bomb blast takes innocent lives and the police conclude that the doc’s beloved wife was the suicide bomber. Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym of Algerian-soldier-turned-writer Mohammed Moulessehoul and leads us through a quest on why she took such a step. This sensitive novel portrays the reality that is terrorism with an intense writing that shakes you to the core. A Must Read.

Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
She is ‘low-caste’, Catholic, hot-headed and fearless, and lives in conservative Karachi. Alice Bhatti is a nurse recently in jail for daring to react to a superior. She manages a job in a hospital where she meets Teddy, a man who is an aide-in-hiding for the police, who becomes her romantic pair. Their story takes us along a voyage of dark humour told with brilliance. The portrait of Pakistan is sketched with bold and sharp strokes and the characters are penned with a rare precision. The book compares well against Mohammed Hanif’s excellent first book, The Case of Exploding Mangoes.

Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House India

Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan
The story of a Diaspora Tamil family in the 1980s in Malaysia; Evening is the Whole Day, Preeta Samarasan’s debut, is impressive. The narrative centres round a young girl in a wealthy household who is confused about the mysterious incidents that happen to various people around her and there are certainly some skeletons in the cupboard. The style of writing reminds a reader of A God of Small Things at many places and the build up of the drama is very intense. The prose is elegant and polished and Samarasan’s writing voice is very distinctive. A writer to watch for!

Binding: Royal Paperback
Publisher: Harper Collins India

By Suneetha Balakrishnan