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Nilanjana S Roy

@nilanjanaroy.bsky.social

1.5K followers 980 following 130 posts

Otter of books Black River: https://tinyurl.com/blackriver-india https://tinyurl.com/blackriver-roy Novelist, FT columnist, professional cat herder

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Nov 23

For crime and noir fiction readers — a grazing board.

A small selection: from hard-hitting, dirty realist rural crime (Hurda, by Atharva Pandit) to Mughal-era detectives (Madhulika Liddle), gritty big city crime (Anita Nair, me) to light-hearted romps (Unmana, Samyukta Bhowmick).

#Indianwriting

An Indian crime fiction snapshot: a showcase of book covers. Hurda by Atharva Pandit, the Hachette Book of Indian Detective Fiction, edited by Tarun Saint, Samyukta Bhowmick's A Fatal Distraction, Chikkamma Tours (Pvt.) Ltd by Unmana, Black River by Nilanjana S Roy (me); Anita Nair's Cut Like Wound, Madhulika Liddle's Muzaffar Jang books, Raza Mir's Murder at the Mushaira, and Tanuj Solanki's Manjhi's Mayhem.

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Reposted by Nilanjana S Roy

Daisy Rockwell @shreedaisy.bsky.social · Jul 12

So excited to announce this! Available only in India for now.

Chirag Thakkar @chiragthakkar.bsky.social · Jul 12

I’m thrilled to be publishing a truly special new book by the brilliant, International Booker Prize-winning @shreedaisy.bsky.social

Alice Sees Ghosts is nothing short of a literary masterpiece dressed as a delicious ghost story unlike any you’ve read before.

Pre-order it here: amzn.in/d/hrQLWHZ

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 21

"But in a world which is full of categories, hatred and ideologies, there was this basic decency. There was something beautiful about the two people."

~ Basharat Peer on Homebound

www.rediff.com/movies/repor...

'There Was Something Beautiful About The Two People'

'In a world which is full of categories, hatred and ideologies, there was this basic decency.'

www.rediff.com

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 21

+ Lawyer, activist, reporter for the fiery Lankesh Patrike — the radical wellsprings of Bani Mushtaq's writing.

www.theweek.in/theweek/leis...

Banu Mushtaq has consistently challenged chauvinistic religious interpretations

Banu Mushtaq's stories are simple narratives of complex circumstances in which women from the margins of society find themselves

www.theweek.in

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 21

"The aim of translation, especially in former colonies like ours where English is acquired along with a complicated baggage, should never be to write in “proper” English [but] to introduce the reader to new words that come loaded with the hum of another language."

scroll.in/article/1081...

‘With an accent’: How Deepa Bhasthi translated International Booker Prize-shortlisted ‘Heart Lamp’

An interview with Deepa Bhasthi, whose translation of Banu Mushtaq’s ‘Heart Lamp’ is the first Kannada – and second Indian – book to make the Prize shortlist.

scroll.in

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 21

“This is not just my victory, but a chorus of voices often left unheard. A thousand fireflies lighting a single sky, brief, brilliant and utterly collective.”

~ Banu Mushtaq in her acceptance speech.

#InternationalBooker2025 #internationalbooker

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 7

The @financialtimes.com editorial board on the west's shameful silence on Gaza.

(Proud to be a small part of this paper.)

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Reposted by Nilanjana S Roy

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · May 6

Breaking news: Tensions between the two countries have been rising since last month when New Delhi blamed Islamabad for an attack by militants in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people. www.ft.com/content/c03e...

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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · May 5

Note the reference in the Pulitzer designation to her "fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years"

Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · May 5

A Pulitzer prize to Ann Telnaes, whose cartoon showing a supplicating Bezos led to her departure from the Washington Post's Opinion section

Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post

For delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.

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Reposted by Nilanjana S Roy

The Guardian @theguardian.com · May 5

Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha wins Pulitzer prize for commentary

Renowned poet and author wins prize for series of New Yorker essays on suffering of Palestinians in Gaza The renowned Palestinian poet and author, Mosab Abu Toha, is among this year’s Pulitzer prize winners. Abu Toha was awarded for a series of essays in the New Yorker documenting the lives and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where he has lived nearly all his life. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 6

"I have just won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

Let it bring hope
Let it be a tale."

~ Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet and Pulitzer winner:

www.ndtv.com/world-news/l...

"Let It Be A Tale": Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Wins Pulitzer

Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha has won the Pulitzer Prize for his powerful essays, chronicling the physical and emotional toll of the ongoing war in Gaza.

www.ndtv.com

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 6

Percival Everett:

"That is the first thing fascists do—go after books and art—because that is where we are most human. And it is not writing that I consider so wonderfully subversive. It is actually reading, the most subversive thing we can do. "

news.ucsc.edu/2025/04/a-de...

#writing

A Deep Read interview. Percival Everett and the making of James

This spring, Percival Everett spoke with Dan White, Humanities Writer at UC Santa Cruz, about the creation of his 2024 National Book Award-winning novel James, a book that reoccupies and reimagines Ma...

news.ucsc.edu

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · May 4

Ocean Vuong, in an interview that cracks open so much, so beautifully.

"The syllabus was Baldwin, Annie Dillard, Foucault. And I realized #writing was not writing a respectable email to get a job. It was a medium of understanding suffering. That’s when it changed."

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/m...

‘The Interview’: Ocean Vuong was Ready to Kill. A Moment of Grace Changed His Life.

The poet and novelist on the real reason he became a writer.

www.nytimes.com

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Apr 28

In the 1990s, I dived joyously into the Internet. Yes, it had sleazy alleys — but mostly, using it felt like an exploration, a ramble through diverse communities.

AI was born out of extractive rapaciousness. Using LLMs feels.... weirdly wrong, like wandering into a profit-obsessed simulacrum. 🤖

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Apr 28

And Tim Berners-Lee on AI, in 2025:

"The question is, who does it work for?... "I want AIs to work for me to make the choices that I want to make... Always ask an AI, 'who do you work for?' Whose better interests are you pursuing in your interests and your decisions?"

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Apr 28

Small notes: Tim Berners-Lee in 1999:

"Inventing the WWW involved my growing realisation that there was a power in arranging ideas in an unconstrained, weblike way.The Web arose as the answer to an open challenge, through the swirling together of influences, ideas, & realisations from many sides."

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Apr 28

Small notes: how easily AI Overview is fooled by fake proverbs ("the crow and the scarecrow are no friends", "the deepest well holds the sweetest water" and other nonsense).

It provides such plausible back-formations and stories. You wonder how long the Web as we know it will remain truthful.

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Apr 28

"We are facing a global crisis," says the artist and graphic novelist Badiucao. "The outcome is either autocratic empires dividing the world or World War III."

A generation of dissidents and exiles turn to the graphic novel/ memoir — my column for the @financialtimes.com.

archive.is/6fxlR

Graphic novels are the ideal response to authoritarian regimes -- column by Nilanjana Roy, featuring art from You Must Take Part in Revolution, by Melissa Chan and Badiucao

Illustrations from You Must Take Part in Revolution, by Melissa Chan and Badiucao

The opening paras of my column on authoritarianism, dissidents, and graphic novels.

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Apr 18

"Camellia sinensis herbs, flash-cooked in boiling water to make a light but stimulating broth." Could so easily be a thing. :)

Reposted by Nilanjana S Roy

Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · Apr 3

If this ain't a goddamn perfect eulogy, I don't know what is.

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Janel Comeau 🍁 @verybadllama.bsky.social · Apr 3

I have tariffed
the penguins
that are on
Heard Island

and which
you were probably
assuming
did not export goods

forgive me
they were taking advantage of us
so cunning
and so cold

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Reposted by Nilanjana S Roy

Poetry in Parks @poetryinparks.bsky.social · Mar 29

And some people
Write poems every day of their lives
But not on the page, not on the screen…

Lost and Found by @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social
(read by @zigzackly.bsky.social )

youtu.be/s3kTfnNDADM?...

Lost and Found, by Nilanjana Roy

YouTube video by Poetry in Parks

youtu.be

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Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Mar 27

I am so touched that you would go to the trouble. Thank you.

(Apologies for this late response — I've been travelling.)

Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Mar 21

Thanks — the UK/ US edition was published by Pushkin Press in April/ September 2024.
The Indian edition was published by Westland in November 2022.

(There's often a substantial time lag between the Indian and overseas editions.)

Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Dec 29

Thank you (and have a wonderful 2025!).

Nilanjana S Roy @nilanjanaroy.bsky.social · Dec 15

Watching One Hundred Years of Solitude, spooling the episodes out slowly so as to let the memory of the book return.

Many years ago, GGM set conditions for film-makers: the entire book must be filmed, but only one chapter, two minutes long, was to be released each year, for one hundred years.

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