September fiction: Six new Indian titles that blur the line between our real and imagined worlds

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A Kind of Meat and Other Stories, Catherine Thankamma

The stories in this collection have a shared theme: innocent children and audacious women – wives, mothers, daughters, widows – carrying the burden of living in a conservative and hypercritical country.

In the eponymous story, young Saira inadvertently admits to eating beef during Christmas celebrations – what follows is a storm of judgment and fear when the landlord comes knocking at the door. In “The Road Home”, after the death of her husband, Theresa feels devastated when her own sons betray her trust, forcing her to confront the painful truth that love can often be traumatic. In “Madhu”, a middle-class woman’s hostility gives way to compassion as she gets to know the colony’s garbage collector. In “Tara”, a mother sheds her inhibitions and helps her young daughter overcome a learning disability. In “Pieta”, the lens shifts to Mother Mary – the story probes the weight of love and grief that only a mother can know when her child is victimised and put to death. In each of the stories, the characters undergo a quiet transformation as they subtly sidestep the demarcated boundaries that society has imposed upon them and forge new identities...

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