India is home to more than a billion people and several hundred languages, and so any list of books that attempt to describe it is bound to be incomplete. The ones I’ve chosen speak to some of the themes dominant in India these days – caste, propaganda, political prisoners, the weaponisation of state machinery, listless youth and nostalgia for gentler times. Some are recent and helped me understand the country as I wrote my own book, The New India; others, though older, stand out for their language and craft. All of them are worth your time.
***
