5 New Books to Look Out For in 2021

THE START-UP WIFE

Tahmima Anam

Canongate Books

Asha Ray is a coder who, upon reconnecting with a high school love interest, abandons her PhD program to write a new algorithm for an exclusive tech firm. The platform launched by Asha and her husband offers to replace religious rituals. As it explodes into popularity, the couple buckle under the limelight offered by their millions of online users, and their story becomes a commentary on the slippery slopes of marriage and start up culture.

MURDER AT THE MUSHAIRA

Raza Mir

Aleph Book Company

From the author of Ghalib: A Thousand Desires and The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry, this new whodunit unfolds in the India of 1857, when the city is teeming with poetry soirees and the thirst for revolution against the corrupt British East India Company.

JUNGLE NAMA: A Story of the Sundarban

Amitav Ghosh

HarperCollins India

In his first ever book written in verse, Amitav Ghosh revisits the Sundarban legends of Bon Bibi, whose original Bengali verses can be traced back to the 19th century, and which were also at the centre of Ghosh's novel The Hungry Tide. In an illuminated edition illustrated by Salman Toor, Ghosh retells the stories of the rich merchant Dhona, the poor boy Dukhey, the spirit of Dokhin Ray who manifests in front of humans in the form of a tiger, and the forest goddess Bon Bibi.

WOMEN AND OTHER MONSTERS

Jess Zimmerman

Beacon Press

From the editor-in-chief of literary magazine Electric Literature comes a feminist critique of the notion that women who "step out of bounds" with their anger, ambition, greed, and sexuality are "unnatural" and "monstrous". Zimmerman analyses 11 female monsters of mythology, including Medusa, Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx to paint a portrait of the female hero who embraces agency and power.

LAND OF BIG NUMBERS: STORIES

Ti-Ping Chen

Simon & Schuster

A collection of short stories on modern day China infused with magic and social realism, Chen's book follows the lives of gamers and underground bloggers operating under a communist state, employees of a government call centre navigating personal trauma, experiences of surfing through the Chinese stock exchange, individuals trapped in a subway without permission to leave, and more.