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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)
  • Friday, 13 September, 2024
    Fiction
    Why Elsa Morante’s work still resonates today

    On the 50th anniversary of her bestselling novel La Storia, we remember a writer inextricably linked to Italian political history

    A woman stands by a framed drawing of a cat, with a shelf of books visible behind her
  • Monday, 26 August, 2024
    Poetry
    Give me Instapoetry — and something more substantial too

    Bite-sized verse has its place, but two new anthologies offer a chance for deeper engagement with poetic traditions

    A poet recites verse at a public poetry reading
  • Wednesday, 7 August, 2024
    Books
    In celebration of bookshops

    When authors pay tribute to booksellers, it’s not only a virtuous circle — it’s a double dose of joy for readers too

    A photograph of a terrace overlooking wooded hillsides, with small white tables shaded in the sun by white umbrellas and a glimpse of a bookshop at the far end of the terrace
  • Tuesday, 23 July, 2024
    Books
    The lasting legacy of writer James Baldwin

    As the author’s centenary approaches, his courageous, powerful and sometimes prescient work is finding new audiences around the world

  • Tuesday, 9 July, 2024
    Books
    Pirates or princesses, the adventures we read as children shape us for life

    It’s an essential part of growing up, yet the number of kids who read purely for pleasure is at an all-time low

  • Tuesday, 25 June, 2024
    Books
    Writers on writers: why literary friends make the best biographers

    From Joan Didion to Toni Morrison: writers emerge most clearly in the memoirs of fellow authors

    A woman in her eighties, with straight shoulder-length hair and wearing a mauve sweather sits in shadow in a theatre seat, her expression serious and thoughtful
  • Tuesday, 4 June, 2024
    Books
    What do novelists have to say about election fever?

    With more than 80 countries going to the polls this year, it’s time to revisit the best fictional accounts of political high drama

    Looking down on a line of people in an alleyway
  • Tuesday, 21 May, 2024
    Books
    Anne Brontë — the sister we forgot

    The novelist’s bold writing and merciless eye make her feel like a writer for today

  • Monday, 6 May, 2024
    Books
    Frighteningly good — in praise of horror fiction

    Modern writers are breathing new life — and fresh ghosts and monsters — into a genre that reflects on real-world nightmares

    A person with an alarmed expression sits at a candlelit dinner table, cutlery in their hands, reading a book propped up against a jug. A black cat is seated next to the person
  • Tuesday, 23 April, 2024
    Books
    Why authors’ letters sometimes say more than their books

    Seamus Heaney’s touching acts of kindness, Jane Austen’s hangovers — an author’s correspondence reveals things that literature cannot

    A man with glasses looks into the rearview mirror of a car
  • Monday, 8 April, 2024
    Books
    Travelling mindfully through the pages of a book

    The best travel writers help us see faraway places — and the world around us — in a fresh light, especially post-pandemic

    Passengers queue to board a plane at an airport
  • Tuesday, 19 March, 2024
    Non-Fiction
    Books about Asia? It’s a golden age

    A fresh wave of historical studies shows that the ancient and medieval worlds were more closely linked than we used to think

  • Tuesday, 27 February, 2024
    Books
    The secret of a bestseller? Why word of mouth beats algorithms

    In the uncertain business of publishing, there is nothing more powerful than a reader who truly loves a book

    Two women and a man sit reading books
  • Wednesday, 14 February, 2024
    Books
    What makes a literary city?

    Some emerge naturally but others need a nudge, with bookshops, festivals and more, to welcome readers and writers

  • Wednesday, 31 January, 2024
    Books
    The British Library cyber breach was an attack on the world’s knowledge

    The impact from last year’s ransomware incident has spread to scholars, readers and writers across the globe

    A glass-fronted tower of bookshelves in which can be glimpsed the reflections of people sitting reading at desks
  • Monday, 15 January, 2024
    Books
    Our enduring fascination with Kafka

    As the centenary of the writer’s death approaches, is our world looking more Kafkaesque than he could ever have imagined?

    A sketch in black on a white background of a distorted human figure sat down
  • Monday, 1 January, 2024
    Books
    The bliss — and benefits — of slow reading

    Enjoying a book at a leisurely pace teaches you to sharpen your attention and improves your understanding

  • Tuesday, 5 December, 2023
    Books
    Take refuge in the gossip of the gilded age

    Memoirs of the socialites and swells of an earlier era offer perfect festive reading — without today’s celebrity spin

    Painting of a woman and, to one side, a man, both in Victorian dress, sitting at a dinner table in a dark room softly lit with red-shaded lamps
  • Tuesday, 21 November, 2023
    Books
    The delights of year-end reading lists

    Why ‘best books’ round-ups provide seasonal score-keeping fun — and a timely reminder of the benefits of venturing outside your usual genres

  • Saturday, 28 October, 2023
    Books
    Let animal spirits haunt your Halloween stories

    No tale of ghosts and scares is complete without the spooky presence of a feared familiar

    An owl perches in a tree at night
  • Tuesday, 3 October, 2023
    Books
    Margaret Atwood, John Grisham and me — was AI right to use our books?

    Many authors are discovering that their writing has been fed into the AI blender — and I am among them

    A smiling man and woman, part of a crowd, hold up banners saying ‘Leave AI to sci-fi’ and ‘The pen is mightier than the algorithm’
  • Saturday, 23 September, 2023
    ObituaryGita Mehta
    Gita Mehta, writer and journalist, 1943-2023

    Her colourful books and intrepid reporting sidestepped stereotypes of India in favour of a more nuanced portrait

    Gita Mehta in 1997. ‘I wanted to write a postcolonial book which was not an apology,’ she said at the time
  • Friday, 22 September, 2023
    Fiction
    The novelists painting a human picture of Modi’s divided India

    Fiction goes where news falls short, bringing depth and nuance to the lives of people crudely labelled by politics or religion

    A Muslim girl rides a bicycle past an untethered bull on a street in northern India
  • Wednesday, 6 September, 2023
    ReviewFiction
    Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li — brittle fractures of the heart

    The short stories in the writer’s third collection are quiet, subtle and often agonisingly wrenching

  • Friday, 25 August, 2023
    Fiction
    The pleasures of bilingual reading

    Younger people seem more open to reading in translation — or in a second language — and it’s changing their world view

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