Frontlist | 10 must-read international best selling novels by Indian authors

#2 The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

With a prestigious award of Pulitzer Prize for fiction in it’s author’s name, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake is an amalgamation of clash in cultures and the immigrant experience, with undertones of the tangled relations between different generations. Through the anecdotes of the Ganguli family who move to America to settle from Calcutta, Lahiri opens up a world of emotions.

#3 God of small things – Arundathi Roy

Winning the Booker Prize in 1997. God of small things is the story of twins Rahel and Esthappen from Ayemenem (now a part of Kottayam district, Kerala). It explores the little things in life and takes an ironic note on casteism which prevails to be a concern in India.

#4 The White tiger – Aravind Adiga

With Balram Halwai as the protagonist, Aravind Adiga takes us through the journey of Balram finding success in his own terms, by hook or by crime. With an absolutely captivating narrative, The White Tiger is hard to put aside once you start. This novel also scored a Booker Prize for Aravind. Moreover, Netflix has adapted a film with the same name set to release on 22nd January.

#5 A Suitable boy – Vikram Seth

Winning the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book), A Suitable boy is set in India during the early 1950s. While India being newly independent and chaos everywhere, A Suitable Boy revolves around four rich extended families with a tale of love and life. It has also been adapted into a series by Netflix which is currently streaming.

#6 Midnight’s children – Salman Rushdie

Winning The best of the booker 2008 and booker prize 1981 among others, Midnight’s children shows the world through Saleem Sinai’s eyes who was one among the 1001 children born at the midnight hour of India’s independence.

#7 Witness the night – Kishwar Desai

In a modest community in the core of India, a little youngster is discovered attached to a bed inside a condo where 13 individuals lie dead. With dark and twisted tales portraying the issue of sexism, Kishwar Desai keeps us engrossed in her novel. Witness the Night was awarded the Costa First Novel Award in 2011.

#8 Shantaram – Gregory Davis Roberts

Narrated by Lin, Shantaram is about his own adventures of the times when he escapes with a false passport from a maximum-security prison in Australia to the teeming streets of Mumbai. Shantaram is based on the life of the author who was convicted of robbing a bank and escaped to India.

#9 Great Indian Novel – Shashi Tharoor

This award-winning, internationally acclaimed novel is Tharoor’s masterpiece with a recast of the epic, The Mahabharata. With hilarious satire and usage of puns, the Great Indian Novel documents the Indian struggle through independence.

#10 Train to Pakistan Khushwant Singh

It is a story of a town named Mano Majra, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived in harmony for centuries. With the partition in place, the whole of North India is in a ruckus. Train to Pakistan gives us a taste of the horrors of the civil war and how the village fell prey to religious hatred. It also tells a tale of a Muslim girl and Sikh boy whose love endures the rage of war.