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

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  • Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
    ReviewPoetry
    The Penguin Book of Indian Poets — a feast of literature

    Jeet Thayil’s selection of poems written in English is a dazzling collection vast in ambition and scope

  • Friday, 6 May, 2022
    Books
    The female gaze and its empowering transformation of mythology

    Agency replaces submissiveness when women are recast as protagonists, rather than victims or peripheral characters

  • Friday, 22 April, 2022
    Fiction
    The gift of Rabih Alameddine

    The stories of this year’s PEN/Faulkner award-winner are both enchanting and full of political fury

  • Friday, 1 April, 2022
    Books
    Anne Frank’s potent words

    More than 75 years since she wrote her diary, it remains as important as ever

  • Wednesday, 16 March, 2022
    Books
    Writers on the front line of Ukraine’s war of words

    Authors and translators are the invisible army in the country’s resistance against the Russian invasion

  • Thursday, 3 March, 2022
    Books
    The TikTok hashtag that’s brought an uptick in book sales

    It’s the billions of views and snowballing growth that makes #BookTok such a force — but for how long?

  • Wednesday, 16 February, 2022
    ReviewFiction
    Chivalry — a graphic twist on Neil Gaiman’s gentle classic

    The fantasy writer’s tale of knights, quests and a wily widow is beautifully reinvented by illustrator Colleen Doran

  • Friday, 11 February, 2022
    ObituaryLata Mangeshkar
    Lata Mangeshkar, Bollywood playback singer, 1929-2022

    The voice that bound generations of Indians together and dominated the songs of Hindi cinema

  • Friday, 4 February, 2022
    Travel books
    Vagabonds and vanishing acts

    A disappearance in the Himalayas is the subject of a new book exploring our need to ‘find ourselves’ by escaping the familiar

  • Wednesday, 19 January, 2022
    Books
    Substack is bringing writers closer to their readers

    Literary newsletters from the likes of Salman Rushdie, George Saunders and Roxane Gay are reviving the informal sprit of ’90s bloggers

  • Friday, 7 January, 2022
    Books
    The unflinching vision of Joan Didion

    Tributes to the late great American writer tend to overlook her ability to wrench you out of your comfort zone

  • Thursday, 16 December, 2021
    ReviewFiction
    These Precious Days by Ann Patchett — personal, yet universal

    The writer’s latest collection of essays muse on the importance of friendships, family and finding what matters most

  • Friday, 26 November, 2021
    Science fiction books
    Churails, djinns and rakshasas — India’s monsters go mainstream

    The country’s writers have used science fiction and fantasy to tackle earthly issues — and the rest of the world is catching up

  • Thursday, 4 November, 2021
    Books
    Culture, heritage and the power of food

    Two books show how an immigrant’s cuisine can be an introduction, ambassador and repository of memory

  • Tuesday, 26 October, 2021
    Books
    When women give voice to women

    A newly translated collection of poetry by a writer revered in her native India offers a sense of sisterhood

  • Saturday, 9 October, 2021
    Books
    Lessons from 1971 for the eco-activist writers of today

    It’s been 50 years since three iconic publications warned of environmental suicide. So what can they teach us?

  • Friday, 24 September, 2021
    Books
    When words fail, make some new ones

    John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows taps into a long tradition of linguistic inventiveness

  • Friday, 10 September, 2021
    Non-Fiction
    The folly of inflexible positions on the Kama Sutra

    Hindu nationalists have attacked their own heritage with a mindless stunt outside an Ahmedabad bookstore

  • Thursday, 2 September, 2021
    ReviewFiction
    The Sweetness of Water — freedom and fear

    Nathan Harris’s debut novel about emancipated slaves after the US civil war is sure to win hearts

  • Friday, 13 August, 2021
    Books
    The ebook at 50 — is the dream of a free, universal library fading?

    Project Gutenberg’s founder wanted unlimited access for all but his utopian vision has been eclipsed

  • Friday, 30 July, 2021
    Life & Arts
    The summer that changed my life

    From Hawaii to the Himalayas, Simon Schama, Lucy Kellaway and other FT writers on the holidays that stayed with them 

  • Thursday, 29 July, 2021
    Books
    Why a book-lover like me turned from a Finisher to an Abandoner

    How can we avoid the twin traps of finishing books we don’t care for and ditching those that might have brought us joy?

  • Friday, 16 July, 2021
    Books
    Cults use language to cast their spell

    Why intelligent — even sceptical — independent thinkers succumb to the allure of community and ‘inside’ information that some groups offer

  • Friday, 2 July, 2021
    Booker Prize 2021
    A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam — long shadows

    The Sri Lankan writer’s second novel attempts to air the wounds of the country’s civil war and refuses to succumb to collective amnesia

  • Friday, 18 June, 2021
    Books
    Where women dare to tread: the act of reclaiming space

    The art of ‘flânerie’ has long been the preserve of white males — but a generation of women writers seeks to change all that

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