Ten recent Indian books

Times Now used World Book Day on April 23, 2026 to publish a list of 10 Indian books from the last five years, framing it as a shelf guide for recent writing from inside the country. (timesnownews.com) The piece, by Girish Shukla and updated at 09:33 IST on April 23, says many English-language reading lists still center Indian-origin writers based abroad and argues for attention to writers working in India, including in languages other than English. (timesnownews.com) Two of the books on the list come with major prize markers. Geetanjali Shree’s *Tomb of Sand*, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, won the 2022 International Booker Prize, the first book originally written in an Indian language to do so; Banu Mushtaq’s *Heart Lamp*, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, won the 2025 International Booker Prize. (thebookerprizes.com 1) (thebookerprizes.com 2) The selection also mixes genres instead of treating “Indian books” as a fiction-only category. Times Now’s visible entries include William Dalrymple’s 2024 history *The Golden Road*, which Bloomsbury describes as a study of South Asia’s role in shaping the ancient world, and Aanchal Malhotra’s 2022 debut novel *The Book of Everlasting Things*. (bloomsbury.com) (books.google.com) That mix reflects a broader shift in Indian publishing toward translation and cross-genre visibility. Times Now’s article says translated books have seen sales double over the last decade, and its own World Book Day package this week also included a separate list devoted entirely to books in translation. (timesnownews.com 1) (timesnownews.com 2) The article’s argument is less about a canon than about recency. By limiting itself to books published between 2021 and 2025, it turns World Book Day into a recommendation list for current Indian publishing rather than a rerun of older staples by Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, or Kiran Desai. (timesnownews.com) Several of the books cited in and around this conversation show how much recent attention has gone to translated Indian writing. Perumal Murugan’s *Fire Bird* won the JCB Prize for Literature in 2023, and his earlier Tamil novel *Pyre*, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan, reached the 2023 International Booker longlist. (penguin.co.in) (thebookerprizes.com) Other books in the recent cycle have reached readers through scale rather than prizes. Abraham Verghese’s *The Covenant of Water*, published in May 2023, was picked for Oprah’s Book Club and became a major international bestseller while remaining rooted in Kerala across three generations of one family. (abrahamverghese.org) (groveatlantic.com) World Book Day lists like this one are also a publishing ritual. UNESCO marks April 23 as World Book and Copyright Day, and Rabat was named World Book Capital for 2026, giving outlets and publishers a ready-made peg for gift guides, reading lists, and national-literature roundups. (unesco.org 1) (unesco.org 2) The immediate takeaway is simple: on April 23, 2026, one of India’s large news sites used World Book Day to point readers toward 10 books published since 2021, with translation, recent prizes, and India-based authors at the center of the pitch. (timesnownews.com)