The Lowland

Reinventing yourself is harder when you don’t remember who you were.  

When 26-year-old Ayan is sent to live with his grumpy old grandfather Gopal Shanker in a tiny village in Kerala, he is understandably devastated. What can a sleepy, idyllic village without even internet connectivity offer a young man?

At the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, lives an embittered old judge who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But this is far from easy with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter Sai, come to live with him and his chatty cook. Biju, the cook's son, is trying to make his way in the US, flitting between a succession of grubby kitchen jobs to stay one step ahead of the immigration services.

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

This Audible production expertly brings to life Salman Rushdie’s postcolonial masterpiece Midnight’s Children, available for the first time unabridged in audio. Written in the magical-realist style that Rushdie is renowned for, Midnight’s Children follows Saleem Sinai - a child gifted with extraordinary powers after being born at the exact moment India becomes independent. The captivating events that unfold act as an allegory for India’s transition from colonialism to independence as Saleem finds himself 'handcuffed to history', with his fate entwined with that of his newly independent state. 

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers - a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village - will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. 

In a city graveyard, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet between two graves. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby appears quite suddenly, a little after midnight, in a crib of litter. In a snowy valley, a father writes to his five-year-old daughter about the number of people who attended her funeral. And in the Jannat Guest House, two people who've known each other all their lives sleep with their arms wrapped around one another as though they have only just met.

In this tale revolving around not just parents and children, but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most.

Karna's Wife: The Outcast's Queen tells the extraordinary story of Karna, the unsung hero of the Mahabharata, through the eyes of his wife, Uruvi, bringing his story to the listener from a unique perspective. An accomplished Kshatriya princess who falls in love with and dares to choose the sutaputra over Arjun, Uruvi must come to terms with the social implications of her marriage and learn to use her love and intelligence to be accepted by Karna and his family.

Nuri is a beekeeper, his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo - until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. 

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Girl, Woman, Other, written by Bernardine Evaristo, read by Anna-Maria Nabirye. Teeming with life and crackling with energy, told through many distinctive voices, this novel follows the lives of 12 very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

Ajay believes in living for himself; Bhavna teaches him to live for others. Ajay is a planner for life; Bhavna makes him live in every moment. You are the Best Wife is a story of two people with contradictory ideologies who fall in love. It changes them for good. It changes the way they look at the world and the way the world looks at them. Until destiny reveals its plans.

In Revolution Twenty20, Chetan Bhagat explores the lives of three close friends from Varanasi, set against the backdrop of India's corrupt political system. Gopal and Raghav are the best of friends. Although they hail from completely different family backgrounds, they share a common passion for success and realizing their dreams in life. Gopal's family has been caught up in a never-ending property dispute, and he aspires to come out of the mess and amass a lot of wealth, Raghav, on the other hand, desires to bring about a revolution in the system and do something significant for society.

When Addie La Rue makes a pact with the devil, she trades her soul for immortality. But there's always a price - the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone. Addie flees her tiny home town in 18th-century France, beginning a journey that takes her across the world, learning to live a life where no one remembers her and everything she owns is lost and broken. Existing only as a muse, she learns to fall in love anew every single day. 

My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, the essays speak in a uniquely spirited voice, marked by compassion, clarity and courage.