The Best of 2025: South Asian Fiction

In a year that’s been turbulent and rapid, Indian fiction has many ups and downs. From the rise of new fiction in translation to Heart Lamp winning the International Booker to established authors like Arundhati Roy turning to nonfiction to releases from various big names, there was a large selection to choose from. But we’ve narrowed things down to ten of our favourites this year – books in English and in translation that we think are essential reading from 2025.

Kiran Desai – The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Twenty years in the making, Kiran Desai’s latest Booker-shortlisted novel is worth the wait. A doorstopper, a love story, a family saga, an immigrant tale, and much more packed into a whopping 700 pages, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny defies categorisation but will have you spellbound. A sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives around the turn of the millenium, a cross-generational tale and a book that takes you from Allahabad to Delhi to America to Mexico to Goa with many stops in between, this is a novel of ideas, a hugely ambitious and brilliantly crafted book that deserves all the acclaim it’s received. 

Jeet Thayil – The Elsewhereans

Described as a ‘documentary novel’, The Elsewhereans is a genre-defying book that blends fiction, travelogue, memoir, a ghost story, photographs and more into a tale that unfolds across continents and decades. From the backwaters of Kerala to the streets of Bombay, Hong Kong, Paris and beyond, Thayil maps the restless lives of those shaped by separation: both the ones who leave and the ones left behind. A hypnotic meditation on migration, loss, and the fragile threads of identity, it’s vivid and powerful. 

Anita Desai – Rosarita

Another pick from within the Desai family, Rosarita is a short, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s independence. Telling the story of Bonita, away from her home in India to learn Spanish, it is spare but full of meaning. When a woman claims to recognize Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist, Bonita tells her she must be mistaken. But it begins a journey that forces daughter and mother to move apart and come together, where the past threatens to flood the present, or rewrite it.

Rahul Bhattacharya – Railsong

In a young country charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless child of a railway worker, pines for a life freed of oppressive domesticity. As diesel engines replace steam, and the calamitous churn of drought, famine and strikes choke the railway township, she dares to imagine a different future for herself. Boarding a train, she flees to Bombay, even as the country rumbles towards Emergency. In the frenetic landscape of the great modern metropolis, Charu attempts to live on her own terms. Beyond focusing on her trials, Railsong is a saga of political and social upheavals, a hugely accomplished second book that is worth savouring.

Kanza Javed – What Remains After A Fire

In eight unflinching stories, Kanza Javed unspools the lives of characters desperately trying to forge a path for themselves on the margins of society. An addict teaches his young son to shoot dogs on the streets of Lahore. A Christian nurse gets drawn into a plan to trap the ghost of her patient’s former lover. A Pakistani student in a small Appalachian town grapples with a startling act of violence Written with insight and empathy, Javed’s stories reach across divides of class, gender, and religion, examining questions of identity, belonging and loss between Pakistan and America. 

Anil Yadav – Courtesans Don’t Read Newspapers

A collection from a leading Hindi writer, ably translated by Vaibhav Sharma, Courtesans Don’t Read Newspapers brings surreal situations to light with deftness. A reporter faces the moral dilemma of reporting a conspiracy, vanity is explored very subtly through secondhand clothes, a singer’s music gets inextricably linked to politics and power, and things are never quite what they seem. A sharp, focused collection that explores power, memory and Indian society with lightness, this is a wonderful book. 

Nalini Jones – The Unbroken Coast 

A debut novel from an established writer, Nalini Jones’ book spans the turbulent years when Bombay became Mumbai, at time when environmental and economic pressures are just beginning to change the fortunes of indigenous fisherfolk. The Unbroken Coast is a lyrical novel that explores memory, faith, and the nature of home, following an unexpected friendship between a young girl struggling to find her place in the world, and an aging historian reckoning with his past. 

Alina Gufran – No Place to Call My Own

A debut novel about a young Indian Muslim woman trapped in a society that’s quick to undermine her—constantly making assumptions about her religion, sexuality, ambition and worth—Sophia plunges headlong into a journey of questionable decisions through her twenties. Following her through various locations and the chaos that ensues, No Place to Call My Own is an intimate, arresting portrait of millennial disquiet in a volatile world, and one of the finest debuts of the year.

Fauzia Rafique – Keeru

A new work in translation from a Pakistani-Canadian author, Keeru, translated by Haider Shahbaz is an intriguing book. Muhammad Hussain Khan, or 'Keeru',  named after insects, has come a long way since Pakistan, where he was hounded for his caste, and almost beaten to death on false charges of blasphemy. Having escaped to Canada, he is the owner of a small business, but the past has an inexorable habit of haunting him even in the present. Told from the perspectives of five characters, each tormented by their past and in pursuit of a home, Keeru overturns familiar tropes about migration and family. A brilliant novella that’s a celebration of resilience and our power to find hope across continents and realtiies. 

Amrita Mahale – Real Life

In a remote Himalayan Valley, wildlife biologist Tara has vanished. Hunting for answers, her best friend Mansi sets out to retrace her steps in the days before her disappearance. The prime suspect sits in police custody, his obsession with Tara laid bare, his testimony a labyrinth of contradictions and half-truths. Told in exquisite prose, Real Life is a gripping mystery that subverts the genre, transforming into a masterful exploration of love and loss, visibility and erasure, surveillance and the never-ending tussle between individual and society. Amrita Mahale’s second book is a powerful and thoughtful novel for our times. 

Check out some of these titles and explore more on the Hammock Literary Map: our interactive, searchable database of award-winning authors from the last two centuries that includes classics, cult hits, and much more.