As December tapers off and we wait for 2025 to arrive, The Wire takes a look at the books that shaped our year. We asked authors, activists and fellow journalists about the titles that moved them in 2024. Here’s what they had to say.
Geetanjali Shree, author
Shivamurti’s novel Agam Bahai Dariyav. Poignant and also full of humour, this portrayal of the suffering and exploitation of peasants in North India, and of their resilience and cultural richness is a sad reminder that little has changed since Godaan (1936) and Rag Darbari (1968). His use of language and celebration of the rich folklore of Uttar Pradesh is most admirable.
Kavita Kabeer, writer and activist
Several books by young and first time writers were filled with unique perspectives. I particularly admired Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X. This is a book that shows the complex human side of what we call the ‘unorganised sector’ in economics. Especially the unseen labour of women, the loss of art and artisans’ lives over the decades, the truly precarious lives of those who build and run our cities, and the power of banding together to demand your rights. A must read for those who want to see the economy in action.
Pariplab Chakraborty, illustrator, The Wire
There are few books that remain etched into your system of understanding. For me, one such book from this year is Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X. With an explicit authenticity and gripping storytelling, the book chronicles the story of a working class muslim woman from Benaras who is forced to migrate to Delhi after the 1992 communal riots. As a testament of the finest journalism, Neha documents the challenges and harsh political and economic realities faced by the migrant working class people, especially women.
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Karan Thapar, veteran journalist
The book that impressed me – rather than moved – and which I enjoyed enormously in 2024 is called Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History, compiled by Matthew Parris, a former colleague from the days when he was anchor of London Weekend Television’s Weekend World programme and I was one of the producers. It’s a delightful if scurrilous collection of insults that we can all use and certainly enjoy reading. One of my favourites is this one from Winston Churchill: “An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street and when the door opened Attlee got out.’
Faiyaz Wajeeh, editor, The Wire Urdu
When it comes to Hindi and Urdu literature, my reading journey this year was a mixed bag. While I went through several novels and poetry collections, most left me feeling disheartened. Yet, there were two exceptions that stood out and compelled me to think differently Alam Khursheed’s Koi Masafat Baqi Hai and Mohan Mukt’s Ham Khatam Karenge. Both works challenged me to reevaluate and explore perspectives on pressing issues in ways that were refreshing and thought-provoking.
Beyond literature, Parkala Prabhakar’s The Crooked Timber of New India proved to be a remarkable read. It offers a sharp critique of the challenges confronting Indian politics and the threats looming over our constitutional values. It felt like a necessary cautionary tale for these turbulent times. The Hindi translation by Vyalok Pathak is equally commendable and ensures the book’s accessibility to a broader audience.
Aparna Bhattacharya, political analyst
There were two actually. The Identity Project by Rahul Bhatia was painful to read, yet it was necessary to understand India in 2024. I also re-read Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore after a long time and, once again, got goosebumps.
Sravasti Dasgupta, senior reporter, The Wire
V. V. Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night is a heart rending piece of historical fiction set through three decades of the Sri Lankan civil war, seen and narrated through the eyes of a young woman who aspires to become a doctor but has her whole world upended as her elder brother leaves home one night never to return again as civil war looms, starts, and then ends leaving her and her world changed in ways she would have never imagined. While it is a work of fiction, the book reads as a deeply personal account that is as thoroughly researched, haunting and raw as it is visceral. In one word, the book was unputdownable.
Vani Vasudevan, veteran publisher
Intertidal by Yuvan Aves, edited and published by a good friend at Bloomsbury, is a meditation on nature, a deep, intimate and spiritual evocation of life in the shore-lands and marshes in and around Chennai, my coastal home. Aves opened my eyes to the profoundly spiritual connect between the natural world – where every micro-organism pulsates with a soul – and the human, and the grave danger in losing this connect.
Tamanna Naseer, associate editor, The Wire English
Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, set in 1950s Naples, with its vivid portrayal of Lila and Lenù’s intense, complex bond, deeply impacted me. The manner in which the novel explores the triumphs of female relationships and underlines the themes of poverty and feminism is what made it stand out for me.
Jehangir Ali, correspondent
On Photography by Susan Sontag. I am late to this but Sontag’s piercing insights have changed the way I look at photography, and also influenced the way we journalists looks at the characters of our stories. A remarkable feat!
Also read: Han Kang’s Nobel Is a Testament to The Power of Translators
Pavan Korada, data analyst, The Wire
Love in a Time of War by Lara Marlowe. Every page screams: This is what modern war looks like. It demands that you confront this reality, square in the face, before you even think about cheering on those jolly war profiteers from the sidelines. It is also a lament, a weary sigh that echoes down through the ages that men are insensitive brutes. All that fancy education, impressive degrees, all the books read and the sonnets memorised – it all goes out the window like confetti in a hurricane, when faced with their base afflictions and insurmountable egos.
Sharmita Kar, assistant editor, The Wire English
Earlier this year, I finished reading Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. The book is about grief and the strangeness of it. What I found interesting is how a memoir so personal (to the writer) can be so personal to the one reading it, even though circumstances are different. At least that is what it did for me, and as I’ve heard, for many people. It took me months to complete it because almost every five pages, I had to pause, sit with a thought, sometimes cry. But now it sits among my favourite books of all time.
Elisha Vermani, sub-editor, The Wire English
Society is quick to foist motherhood on women as a duty they must fulfil; without which they would be incomplete. Claudia Piñeiro’s Elena Knows turns this idea on its head and the result is a murder mystery with a piercing take on the meaning of being a caregiver and the guilt and trauma that comes with it.
Omar Rashid, correspondent
Not moved in the true sense but surely intrigued by the book Darjeeling – Place Names: History and Meanings of Places, Rivers, Mountains and Hills by Dr. Sonam B. Wangdi. The book, written in a simple style, gave me a fascinating account and imagery of the hills of Darjeeling and why places came to be known as they are today. I have always had an interest in names and naming, especially if there is a story, fable, animal, plant or history involved. It was gratifying to know that Sonada, a place today known for its tiny railway station, literally means the abode of the bears. For those who don’t know, Darjeeling is in West Bengal, for now.
Saikat Majumdar, author
Here and Hereafter: Nirmal Verma’s Life in Literature – a wondrous literary biography by Vineet Gill. It begins, in the style of an experimental novel, with Verma’s death, and proceeds to offer striking insights about world literature that I have not found in far more ambitious scholarly volumes. Night life in Delhi and Verma’s intense and troubled relationship with Eastern Europe – this brief book made for magical reading.
Deep Mukherjee, assistant editor, The Wire English
A book that I read this year was I Could Not be Hindu – The Story of a Dalit in the RSS, authored by Bhanwar Meghwanshi and translated by Nivedita Menon from the original Hindi. A gripping personal memoir, the book gives a wonderful insight into why the idea of Hindutva is naturally exclusionary towards marginalised communities.
Aquilur Rahman, social media manager, The Wire
Sin – Stories by Wajida Tabassum, translated by Reema Abbasi. It’s not just the stories by Tabassum that moved me but also her own story and the challenges that she faced while writing them. Also known as ‘female Manto’, Tabassum’s fearless portrayal of the realities of the society she lived in met with severe criticism from the so-called custodians of culture of the time. She was reviled to the point that mobs sets out to torch her publishers’ offices, writes Abbasi.
Soumashree Sarkar, news editor, The Wire English
I read Toward Eternity by Anton Hur – who is every Korean culture fan’s favourite translator – in a couple of days but thought of it almost every day since. The book is bathed in the poetic justice of a translator making a novel out of his craft as a teller of cultures. I have no particular knowledge of science or speculative fiction, but the book seemed to address questions dear to the genre – what makes us human and are we ready to hold on to it.
Rohit Kumar, contributor, The Wire
The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. Palmer invites teachers to bring their best, authentic selves to the profession and asks an important question: How can schools educate students if they fail to support the teacher’s inner life? To educate is to guide students on an inner journey toward more truthful ways of seeing and being in the world. How can schools perform their mission without encouraging the guides to scout that inner terrain? This book has become my go-to guide since I work a lot with high school teenagers.