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Nilanjana Roy

Nilanjana Roy joined the Weekend FT as a columnist in July with a brief to write about life, literature, ideas and much more. She is the author of a fantasy duology, The Hundred Names of Darkness, and a collection of essays on reading, The Girl Who Ate Books. She has edited two anthologies, on Indian food writing and on Indian patriots, poets and prisoners, and has been a columnist for the Business Standard

@nilanjanaroy (link opens in a new browser window)
@nilanjanaroy (link opens in a new browser window)

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  • Thursday, 18 February, 2021
    Non-Fiction
    What lies beneath our idea of the city

    Digging up the past can help to realign our notions of the present

  • Friday, 5 February, 2021
    Science fiction books
    A deep dive into the wormhole of sci-fi invention

    A new online dictionary reveals the often venerable histories of the genre’s most futuristic terms

  • Friday, 22 January, 2021
    Books
    Women who find liberation through obsession

    Three novels chart the course of female preoccupations and how they can offer a route to an enhanced reality

  • Thursday, 7 January, 2021
    Censorship
    The ‘Ulysses’ trial still resonates 100 years on

    Hearing from 1921 was merely the start of a long-running debate over obscenity

  • Thursday, 10 December, 2020
    Books
    The shifting shape of the writing-publishing life

    If mergers of big publishers narrow authors’ chances, digital platforms meanwhile offer wider audiences

  • Wednesday, 25 November, 2020
    Books
    A novel approach to truth-telling

    We need to read the stories of democracies under threat to counteract the ‘fictions’ of their authoritarian leaders

  • Friday, 13 November, 2020
    Books
    What Mowgli did next

    Stephen Alter’s worthy adaptation of ‘The Jungle Book’ allows the forest and its denizens to remain true to their animal selves

  • Friday, 30 October, 2020
    Books
    Hay, the UAE and the literary festival dilemma

    Should litfests expand into countries with a poor human rights record?

  • Wednesday, 14 October, 2020
    Poetry
    Louise Glück and the importance of poetry

    Her Nobel Prize has prompted an outpouring of love from the online poetry community

  • Promoted Content
  • Friday, 2 October, 2020
    ReviewFiction
    The Perfect Nine — an origin myth rousingly retold

    Ngugi wa Thiong’o turns a Kenyan epic into a feminist saga of fearless heroines

  • Friday, 18 September, 2020
    Fiction
    Reading ‘Rebecca’ again and finding a woman possessed

    The classic bestselling gothic novel explores the murkiest corners of women’s hearts

  • Friday, 4 September, 2020
    Books
    When publishing falls foul of politics

    ‘A non-fiction book can claim its own biases — but not invent its own facts’

  • Friday, 17 July, 2020
    Books
    Ferrante’s Naples and the eternal lure of the chaotic city

    ‘But cities are tenacious. That messy blend of anonymity and opportunity, freedom and risk . . . draws millions of people back to the anthill life’

  • Thursday, 2 July, 2020
    Books
    Let’s talk about publishing’s diversity problem

    ‘Writers of colour — if they get published — are paid less in most genres than white writers’

  • Wednesday, 10 June, 2020
    Books
    Fiction gets real: brave stories for troubled times

    Two powerful new novels remind us of the richness of reading about the here and now

  • Friday, 29 May, 2020
    Books
    How TV has fed my love for books

    Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime and other streaming channels have leaned heavily on adaptations

  • Thursday, 14 May, 2020
    Books
    Lockdown, social distancing, WFH — the language of viral times

    Words such as ‘covidiot’ and ‘coughshame’ are being coined across our pandemic-stricken world

  • Thursday, 30 April, 2020
    Books
    When taking a plane was a soul-stirring adventure

    Our empty skies and ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ remind me of an era when flying was a journey into the unknown

  • Friday, 17 April, 2020
    Books
    What are the best wordplay games for lockdown?

    In praise of Scrabble and spelling bees: what are the best word games to help us pass the time and connect with friends?

  • Friday, 3 April, 2020
    Books
    When literary life moves online

    Book tours, festivals, Q&As — real-life or virtual, we need the balm of human stories

  • Friday, 20 March, 2020
    Books
    Join me in the books that can take you around the world

    Reading in a coronavirus lockdown transports the mind — and makes us appreciate travel

  • Friday, 6 March, 2020
    Books
    Can words do justice to the violence in Delhi?

    Anyone living in a city brutalised by riots will understand the silence that settles like a shroud

  • Thursday, 20 February, 2020
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    American Dirt and the risks of writing other people’s stories

    Authors have a right to operate outside their own experience — but not to escape criticism

  • Wednesday, 5 February, 2020
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    Books to reach for in troubled times

    Can reading build resilience to adversity?

  • Friday, 24 January, 2020
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    Lee Child’s retirement is good news for Jack Reacher fans

    A change of authorship grants the character the gift of immortality

Previous You are on page 1 Next

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