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Amitav Ghosh reveals in this 2023 interview how opium trade shaped modern capitalism and created vast fortunes across continents. From American railways to prestigious universities and global banking institutions, Ghosh uncovers how drug money built the foundations of today's economic world order

Born in Delhi and raised in Bengaluru, Keshava Guha studied history and politics at Harvard and writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. In this conversation, the author of Accidental Magic discusses his latest novel, The Tiger’s Share , published by John Murray, an imprint of Hachette India.

Kunzang Choden is a Bhutanese author and the first Bhutanese woman writer to be published in English. Her debut novel Circle of Karma is a critically acclaimed bestseller. She started her career collecting vanishing Bhutanese folktales and moved on to novels, a study of food and culture, and children's books. In this episode of TOI Bookmark, Choden discusses her recent book, Telling Me My Stor...

Kiran Desai is the author of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss , which won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Born in India, she went to the US at 16 and now lives in New York. In this conversation, she discusses her latest novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny , which has been shortlisted for the Booker.

Nayanima Basu is an award-winning journalist and Delhi-based author with extensive experience in international relations, strategic affairs, geopolitics, and geoeconomics. Over the past two decades, she has held senior editorial positions in leading Indian and international media organisations, while also contributing to several independent global publications. As a senior journalist, she continue...

Charlie English is a London-based journalist and non-fictionwriter who has authored several internationally acclaimed books – The Gallery of Miracles and Madness (2021), The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu (2018) and The Snow Tourist (2009). In this episode of TOI Bookmark, Charlie English discusses hismost recent work The CIA Book Club (2025), which captures the history of the CIA’s use of forbidden l...

Weena Pun is the debut author of Kanchhi , a novel that brings to life the political and social tremors stirring Nepal’s valleys at the turn of the millennium, as well as the tenacious, tragedy-marked women of the time. Her writings have appeared in Himal Southasian , The Kathmandu Post , The Record , House of Snow: An Anthology of the Greatest Writing About Nepal , and several other publications....

Dr. Rachel Clarke is an NHS palliative care doctor and an award-winning author who writes regularly for The Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Lancet, among others.  Her books include Your Life in My Hands , which documents life as a junior doctor, and Dear Life , which depicts her work at an NHS hospice and was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award and longlisted for the 2020 Bail...

Kavitha Rao is a London-based journalist and author. Spies, Lies and Allies is her fourth book. Her third book, Lady Doctors: The Untold Story of India’s First Women in Medicine , was a nationwide bestseller. Her articles have appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post, Mint, The Hindu , and many others. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring London, reading crime...

Andrew Miller is a Bristol-born novelist who published hisfirst novel, Ingenious Pain , in 1997. Miller bagged several awards for his debut work, including the InternationalImpact Dublin Literary Award. Miller, who currently lives in Somerset, has had his work published and translated in 20 countries. In today’s conversation, Miller discusses his latest book Land in Winter , which has won the Walt...

Patrick McGee is a reporter at the Financial Times , where he has won a San Francisco Press Club award for his coverage. He joined the newspaper in 2013, starting in Hong Kong before going on to report from Germany and California. Prior to that, he was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal . Patrick holds a master’s degree in global diplomacy from SOAS University of London and a degree in religiou...

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian and editor based in London. Her short stories have appeared in Electric Literature, Catapult, Some Such Stories, and the Willow Herb Review, among others. Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time , was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and a global sensation, and has since been published in India by Hachette India. In this episode, Bradley discusses t...

Dr Jagdish Shukla is a professor of climate dynamics at George Mason University and an internationally recognised figure in weather and climate science. He has received the International Meteorological Prize from the UN, and NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal—the agency’s highest civilian honour—for his role as a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment. In 2007, his team, along wi...

Sam Dalrymple is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian and award-winning filmmaker. A graduate in Persian and Sanskrit from Oxford University, he has also studied at the University of Isfahan and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. His work spans South and Central Asia, including roles with Turquoise Mountain in Kabul and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Hunza and Lahore. In 2018, he co-founded P...

Murzban Shroff is a Mumbai-based writer whose fiction has appeared in over 75 literary journals across the USA and UK, including The Gettysburg Review , The Minnesota Review , The Saturday Evening Post , The Chicago Tribune , Blitmag , and World Literature Today . A recipient of multiple literary awards and seven Pushcart Prize nominations, his debut story collection Breathless in Bombay was short...

Professors Anjali Nerlekar and Ulka Anjaria discuss their co-edited volume, the Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures, in this episode of TOI Bookmark. The two scholars – who have extensive backgrounds in multilingual Indian modernisms, South Asian literature, and associated research fields – reflect on the inherent complexitiesinvolved in the term ‘Indian literature’ and the challenges pos...

Andaleeb Wajid is a hybrid author, having published nearly 50 novels in the past 15 years. She enjoys writing in a number of different genres such as young adult romance and horror. Her YA novel Asmara Summer was adapted for Screen to become Dil Dosti Dilemma on Amazon prime and other works are in the process of being optioned or adapted. Her YA novel the Henna Startup was the winner of the Neve L...

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American professor and novelist best known for his debut novel The Sympathizer , for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016. His latest work, A Man of Two Faces: A memoir, a history, a memorial , follows his parents’ journey growing up in a divided Vietnam and later having to flee their chosen country when South Vietnam was defeated in 1975.

Tim Wigmore is a sports writer for The Daily Telegraph and the author of several acclaimed books on cricket. His latest work, Test: A History , is a narrative history of Test cricket based on years of research and dozens of new interviews. He is also the co-author of Crickonomics and Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution , which won the Wisden Book of the Year and The Daily Telegraph Cricket Book...

Distinguished academic, professor Harish Trivedi delves into the genesis of his Sahitya Academy edited anthology Indian Literary Historiography. Trivedi has a background in English and Sanskrit, and a PhD from University of Wales, UK. He has held teaching positions at institutions such as the University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, St Stephen's College, and has spoken at over thirty uni...

Newly minted 2025 International Booker Prize winners, Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi, for Heartlamp speak to TOI Bookmark. Banu is an activist and lawyer who was inspired to write stories by the experiences of women who came to her seeking help

Bothayna Al-Essa is a best-selling Kuwaiti author of nearly a dozen novels and several children's books. She is also the founder of Taqwin, a bookshop and publishing house known for its critically acclaimed titles. Her most recent novel, The Book Censor’s Library , won the Sharjah Award for Creativity in the Novel category in 2021 and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Best Books of 2024. It...

Bothayna Al Essa is a best-selling Kuwaiti author of nearly a dozen novels and several children's books. She is also the founder of Taqwin, a bookshop and publishing house known for its critically acclaimed titles. Her most recent novel, The Book Censor’s Library , won the Sharjah Award for Creativity in the Novel category in 2021 and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Best Books of 2024. It...

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat, and distinguished scholar. He has translated several works, including the Tirukkural and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy , and is also the author of a novel, Refuge , and a play, Dara Shukoh . Currently, he serves as distinguished professor at Ashoka University. In this conversation, Gandhi discusses his memoir, The Undying: A Personal Hist...

Ranjit Lal is the author of around 50 books, fiction and non-fiction for children and adults who are children. His abiding interest is in natural history, birds, animals and insects, and this is reflected in many of his books