This page brings together books by women writers that I have read and reviewed on Books Poetry and More. The list includes fiction, memoirs, reportage, history, public health, social commentary, translated literature, and literary fiction from India and around the world.
These books explore many different subjects — caste, labour, migration, identity, loneliness, politics, gender, illness, memory, and everyday life. Some are deeply personal, some are political, and some are quiet literary works, but each of them adds something important to the way we understand society, literature, and human experience.
The books below are linked to individual reviews. You can browse them as a reading list or use the page to discover authors and subjects you may want to explore further.
Books by Women Writers
Browse reviews of books written by women authors, including fiction, memoirs, reportage, history, public health, caste, politics, and literary fiction.
Small Things Like These A great read - short, precise, and impactful. Do read if you like short novels.
An interesting book by Peggy Mohan about the history of India through the story of its languages
Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit is a personal and political memoir about caste, shame, identity, and what it means to stop hiding one’s Dalit
The Nellie Massacre of 1983 is an attempt to search for clues from the narratives of attackers and survivors of the incident, which are fragmented
Farah Bashir’s Rumours of Spring is a moving memoir of growing up in Kashmir during the 1990s, capturing fear, memory, conflict, family life, and everyday
First in the book of autobiography of Maya Angelou, capturing her childhood days till the age of seventeen.
Suchitra Vijayan’s Midnight’s Borders takes readers through India’s borderlands, showing how borders shape ordinary lives, memory, violence, citizenship, and belonging.
A fascinating, interesting, insightful and eye opening book about the data and numbers and the truth behind the numbers.
An informative book about the development policies in rural Bihar and how caste and power plays a role often exploiting the people at the bottom.
A book to understand the genesis of Islam and how it came to India and what it means to be a Muslim in India.
An eye opening, informative and moving account of caste and its impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Gaza Mama is a collection of personal blog and political articles by a journalist, born in Palestine.
A collection of essays and speeches by Arundhati Roy in the last couple of years describing how India is moving towards totalitarianism and fascism.
लिहाफ़ - इस्मत चुगताई की कहानियों का संग्रह है। उनकी कहानियों के होकर आप उस दौर के सामाजिक परिवेश में महिलाओं की मनोदशा
A book to understand the "Demonetization". Why it was implemented and what is the impact that people are still facing after couple of years
अमृता प्रीतम जी की आत्मकथा।
Dissent on Aadhaar is a collection of essays by economists, lawyers, technologists, journalists and civil liberty campaigners edited by Reetika Khera. The essays
छब्बीस कहानियाँ - शिवानी जी की लघु कथाओं का संग्रह है। इसमें कुमाऊँ के पहाड़ों और वहां के लोगों की कहानियां हैं और
The Anatomy of Hate is the dissection of the 2002 Gujrat riots through the lives of three men involved in it in varying degree.
Aparna Karthikeyan’s Nine Rupees an Hour documents rural Tamil Nadu’s artisans, farmers, and skilled workers, showing how caste, labour, dignity, and cultural memory are tied