Growing up in Kerala, Ministhy S. was surrounded by a culture of translation. She remembers reading Ashapurna Devi’s Bengali novels, V.S. Khandekar’s Marathi books, and Russian classics, all in Malayalam. The IAS officer based in Uttar Pradesh first started dabbling in translation in 2014, translating American poet Daniel Ladinsky’s work into Malayalam. Her English translation of V.J. James’ Malayalam novel Nireeswaran was released in May this year.

Whenever I re-read The God Of Small Things, its fluent irony and inventive metaphors feel timeless. Roy’s artful satire, while far more subtle than the humorous political culture of the internet, has a similar quality of drawing you in and making you think about why you are chuckling in the first place.

"The Rabbit Hutch" reveals the soul of a post-industrial Midwestern town through it's polyphonic narratives but is not a story with a definitive resolution. Particularly with Blandine’s arc, there is a tantalizing cliffhanger that I was wondering about for nearly half of the book that was ultimately left up to interpretation. However, to read “The Rabbit Hutch” is not to interrogate the relevance of each chapter but to savor its poetic prose and marinate in Tess Gunty’s intriguing ideas about Catholicism, effective altruism, orphanhood and the extraction economy.

“Americanah” is a sprawling love story that follows protagonist Ifemelu as she grows up in Nigeria and then comes to the United States for college. When Ifemelu “ hungered to understand everything about America, to wear a new, knowing skin right away: to support a team at the Super Bowl, understand what a Twinkie was and what sports ‘lockouts’ meant” I really resonated with her.

Earlier this month, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi doubled down on enforcing the 'hijab and chastity' law. Wearing the veil was made compulsory after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which resulted in the overthrowing of Iran’s corrupt Pahlavi monarchy. However, over time, the law stopped being strictly enforced and there was more tolerance for women choosing the kind of the veil they wanted to wear.