Do you want to read Indian Writing that has no tacky young romance or stories of twisted Indian mythology?
Great.
Because I was looking for those too. I wanted to read Indian Literature that makes me feel good about reading it. I wanted to read a story that stayed with me long after I’d read it.
And that’s when I began my research and read some amazingly great books by Indian authors.
And don't worry, these books are great but not even long, you can pick them and finish them in a day if you’re an avid reader, or over the weekend if you’re an average reader.
This list features some of the best writers and best stories of India.
Tip : Many of the below featured books are available on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited Subscription for free or at very reduced prices.
Some of these books are also available for free on Audible.
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Short on Time? Read These Indian Classic Books
Dopehri by Pankaj Kapur - 110 pages
An aging widow hears mysterious footsteps every afternoon at 3 PM, but when she looks, no one's there.
Pankaj Kapur is a legendary Indian actor making his debut as a novelist. He writes about loneliness in old age with quiet grace. Amma Bi lives alone in her crumbling Lucknow mansion, terrified by sounds only she hears. She takes in a young tenant named Sabiha, and suddenly her empty world fills with warmth.
The story is gentle but profound. When Sabiha faces trouble, Amma Bi discovers she still has strength she thought was gone. Kapur writes with theatrical flair, every scene feels alive.
I chose this book because it's about aging, loneliness, and unexpected friendship. In just 110 pages, Kapur creates characters you'll think about for weeks. It's proof that short books can hold enormous hearts.
- Best for: Readers who want quiet, character-driven stories about human connection and aging
- Vibes: Loneliness, friendship, Lucknow setting, gentle, hopeful, theatrical
- Length: 110 pages, finishes in one evening
A poor boy from a South Indian village becomes a rocket scientist and then President of India.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam led India's space and missile programs before becoming President. This is his autobiography, co-written with Arun Tiwari. He shares his humble beginnings in Rameswaram, his struggles in school, and his rise through India's scientific community.
The book is straightforward and honest. Kalam doesn't sugarcoat the obstacles, poverty, failures, and rejections, but he shows how persistence wins. His story destroys every excuse about circumstances holding you back.
I included this because it's the most inspiring Indian autobiography under 200 pages. When you think your background limits you, read this. Kalam's journey reminds you that humble beginnings can lead anywhere.
- Best for: Students, anyone facing obstacles, people who need motivation and proof that hard work matters
- Vibes: Inspirational, autobiography, Indian space program, rags-to-riches, humble, patriotic
- Length: 180 pages, quick read that fuels ambition
A peaceful border village explodes into violence when a train arrives carrying dead bodies during the 1947 Partition.
Khushwant Singh is one of India's greatest storytellers. He sets this novel in Mano Majra, a village where Sikhs and Muslims live together peacefully, until Partition reaches them. A murder happens. A Sikh boy loves a Muslim girl. Then the train of corpses arrives, and everything shatters.
The writing is brutal and honest. Singh doesn't romanticize anything. The village gangster becomes the only hope for peace. The tragedy feels personal, not historical.
I can't read this without crying. It's the best Partition novel under 200 pages. Singh makes you feel the fear, the betrayal, the impossible choices. This book changed how I understand 1947.
- Best for: Readers who want to understand Partition through human stories, not history textbooks
- Vibes: Partition tragedy, Hindu-Muslim-Sikh relations, violence, love story, heartbreaking, essential reading
- Length: 192 pages, gripping, reads in one sitting
Also Read - 100 Best Indian Books to Read In Your Lifetime
What if we retold the Ramayana from the women's perspectives? Sita, Surpanakha, Urmila, the ones history ignored?
Volga is a groundbreaking Telugu feminist writer. She takes the epic Ramayana and flips it. Instead of glorifying Rama, she asks: Was he fair to Sita? What about Surpanakha's humiliation? Why didn't Laxmana's wife get to go to the forest?
Each chapter gives voice to a silenced woman. The stories are short, sharp, and challenge everything you thought you knew. Volga doesn't provide easy answers, she makes you question the "heroes."
I love this book because it broke my brain in the best way. I grew up hearing Ramayana as Rama's triumph. Volga showed me the women who suffered for that triumph. It's uncomfortable and necessary.
- Best for: Readers ready to see beloved epics through a feminist lens and question traditional narratives
- Vibes: Feminist retelling, mythology critique, powerful women, thought-provoking, challenges tradition
- Length: 132 pages, short but packs a punch
Also Read - The Best Modern Ramayana Retellings
A wife's perfect family life collapses when her husband faces fraud charges and disappears.
Shashi Deshpande writes about middle-class Indian women trapped by expectations. Jaya built her life around being a good wife and mother. Then her husband's corruption is exposed, her son acts strangely, and her safe world crumbles.
The book moves through Jaya's memories, her father, her lost loved ones, her abandoned writing career. Deshpande's prose is complex and layered. Jaya realizes she still has choices, even when everything falls apart.
I included this because it captures the suffocation of being a "good Indian wife" perfectly. Jaya's internal struggle feels so real. The ending echoes the Bhagavad Gita, do as you desire. That line haunts me.
- Best for: Women navigating societal expectations, readers who appreciate complex internal narratives
- Vibes: Marriage crisis, middle-class India, feminist, psychological, dense prose, emotional turbulence
- Length: 188 pages, slow read, worth the effort
The Daughter from a Wishing Tree: Unusual Tales about Women in Mythology by Sudha Murthy – 192 pages
Forgotten women from Indian mythology finally get to tell their stories.
Sudha Murty is beloved for making mythology accessible. This book is labeled for children, but don't let that fool you. She resurrects powerful women erased from popular versions, brave queens, clever goddesses, women who changed history.
Each story is short and beautifully written. The characters feel like strong women you know in real life. Sudha Murty shows that mythology isn't just about gods and heroes, it's about remarkable women too.
I keep this book on my shelf because the stories remind me of my grandmother, my aunts, my friends. These ancient women feel modern. Every girl should read this, and every adult should rediscover it.
- Best for: Everyone, kids, adults, anyone who loves mythology with strong female characters
- Vibes: Mythology, feminist lens, inspiring women, accessible, perfect for all ages
- Length: 192 pages, easy, uplifting read
Also Read - 40+ Sudha Murthy Books
Perfect Indian Books for Busy Readers
One day in the life of Bakha, a latrine sweeper, whose "untouchable" status means daily humiliation and violence.
Mulk Raj Anand was a pioneer of Indian English literature. This novel follows Bakha for just one day. He cleans toilets, gets beaten for accidentally touching an upper-caste man, endures insults, and dreams of escape. Then Mahatma Gandhi visits his town.
The anger in this book is raw and real. Anand doesn't soften Bakha's suffering. Every page burns with injustice. The writing is powerful and unflinching.
I chose this because caste discrimination isn't ancient history, it's still happening. This 1935 novel feels urgent today. Bakha's dignity in the face of cruelty breaks your heart and makes you furious.
- Best for: Readers who want to understand caste oppression through visceral, human storytelling
- Vibes: Caste critique, pre-independence India, raw anger, social justice, heartbreaking, essential
- Length: 160 pages, intense, stays with you
Also Read - Best Books about Dalit History
Short stories from India's most fearless writer about Partition, sex, humanity, and the darkness in all of us.
Saadat Hasan Manto is legendary. He wrote about prostitutes, alcohol, abuse, Partition violence, everything "respectable" writers avoided. His stories are short, brutal, and honest. He understood human nature's complexity better than anyone.
The Partition stories gut you. The sex stories shock you. The character studies make you recognize yourself. Aatish Taseer's translation captures Manto's raw voice perfectly.
I can't stop rereading Manto. His story "Toba Tek Singh" about Partition makes me laugh and cry simultaneously. He's fearless in a way modern writers aren't. These stories are uncomfortable, brilliant, and unforgettable.
- Best for: Readers who want bold, unflinching literature that doesn't sugarcoat human nature
- Vibes: Partition trauma, controversial themes, short stories, brutally honest, masterful, bold
- Length: 200 pages, 10-15 stories, read one at a time
A peasant woman in rural India fights poverty, drought, starvation, and disaster to keep her family alive.
Kamala Markandaya writes about survival with devastating beauty. Rukmani marries a tenant farmer as a child. They work their land through droughts and monsoons. She watches one child die of starvation, her daughter become a prostitute, her sons abandon farming.
The prose is elegant, but the story is brutal. Rukmani's courage is quiet and relentless. She survives things that should destroy her. Markandaya shows rural Indian poverty without sentimentality.
This book wrecked me. Rukmani's fortitude feels superhuman, but she's just an ordinary woman. Every Indian should read this to understand the rural struggle that feeds our country.
- Best for: Readers who want to understand rural Indian hardship through one woman's extraordinary resilience
- Vibes: Rural poverty, survival, family saga, devastating, beautiful prose, essential Indian literature
- Length: 183 pages, emotionally heavy, beautiful
Samskara by U.R. Ananthamurthy - 192 pages
A Brahmin dies, but he broke every Brahmin rule. Should the community give him proper last rites or not?
U.R. Ananthamurthy is a Kannada literary giant. This novel explodes hypocrisy in Brahmin orthodoxy. Naranappa ate meat, drank alcohol, mocked God, slept with lower-caste women. Now he's dead, and the Brahmin community faces a crisis: honor him or reject him?
The novel dissects religious hypocrisy with surgical precision. The characters talk about purity while being corrupt. The moral questions have no easy answers.
I love this book because Ananthamurthy doesn't preach. He just shows the contradictions and lets you squirm. It's a devastating critique of caste and religious orthodoxy disguised as a simple question about a funeral.
- Best for: Readers interested in caste, religion, and hypocrisy in Indian society
- Vibes: Religious hypocrisy, caste satire, philosophical, Kannada literature, moral questions, sharp critique
- Length: 192 pages, thought-provoking, challenging
Quick Indian reads that don't compromise on depth
A family goes from poverty to wealth overnight, and the money destroys them from the inside.
Vivek Shanbhag writes in Kannada, brilliantly translated by Srinath Perur. This short novel follows a family living in a tiny ant-infested house. Then their business succeeds. They move to a mansion. Everything changes, and not for the better.
The narrator escapes daily to a café where a waiter named Vincent becomes his confessor. The title "Ghachar Ghochar" means "tangled beyond repair." Exactly what happens to the family? Money exposes their worst traits.
I reread this book constantly. It's a mystery, a family drama, and a warning about success. Shanbhag packs more insight into 132 pages than most 500-page novels. The ending haunts me.
- Best for: Readers who love tight, layered novellas about family dysfunction and money's corrosive power
- Vibes: Family drama, wealth corruption, mysterious, claustrophobic, perfectly structured, haunting
- Length: 132 pages, finishes in 2 hours, lingers forever
A mother wakes up to learn her son, a Naxalite revolutionary, has been killed by police.
Mahasweta Devi is a titan of Bengali literature and feminist writing. This novel captures the Naxalite uprisings of the 1970s through a mother's grief. Her son fought for revolution. The state murdered him. She must navigate her loss while everyone calls her son a terrorist.
Devi's portrayal of women and state violence is devastating. The mother's pain is personal, but the politics are unavoidable. Devi forces you to see the human cost of political violence on all sides.
I included this because it's the best novel about the Naxalite movement. Devi doesn't romanticize revolution or state power. She shows a mother's anguish, and that's more powerful than any political tract.
- Best for: Readers interested in Indian political movements, state violence, and mothers' grief
- Vibes: Political thriller, mother's grief, Naxalite movement, feminist, Bengali literature, heartbreaking
- Length: 144 pages, intense, politically charged
Ten short stories from Nagaland during the 1950s, showing a culture torn between tradition and violent change.
Temsula Ao is one of Nagaland's most important voices. These stories capture the Naga struggle for self-determination. They fought for independence and nationalism, but violence changed them into what they fought against.
The stories introduce you to Naga culture. The landscape, traditions, and values. But they also show war's brutality and betrayal. Ao writes with heartbreak and honesty about her homeland.
I love this collection because it brings northeastern India, often ignored in Indian literature, to vivid life. These stories are about resilience, loss, and humanity surviving war. They're beautiful and tragic.
- Best for: Readers curious about northeastern India, conflict zones, and cultures often erased from mainstream narratives
- Vibes: Northeastern India, Naga culture, war stories, cultural preservation, humanity, beautiful landscapes
- Length: 150 pages, 10 stories, powerful and haunting
The first autobiography by a Tamil Dalit woman, about caste oppression, the Church's betrayal, and finding her voice.
Bama is a pioneering Tamil Dalit writer. "Karukku" means palmyra leaves with sharp edges, this book cuts both ways. She writes about growing up Dalit, becoming a nun to serve her community, then discovering the Church used her to control Dalits, not liberate them.
The writing is raw and ardent. The police violence scene gave me goosebumps. Bama exposes how upper castes, police, and the Church collaborate to oppress Dalits. Lakshmi Holmstrom's translation is flawless.
This book changed how I see caste and religion in India. Bama's courage to leave the convent and tell her truth is staggering. Every Indian should read this.
- Best for: Readers who want to understand Dalit experience, caste violence, and religious politics through one woman's life
- Vibes: Dalit autobiography, caste critique, Church politics, raw honesty, Tamil literature, essential reading
- Length: 139 pages, short, but emotionally massive
103 spiritual poems that won India's first Nobel Prize in Literature.
Rabindranath Tagore is India's greatest poet. He wrote these "Song Offerings" in Bengali, then translated them himself. They're about divine love, nature, longing, and the soul's journey. Western readers went wild for them in 1913.
The poems are lyrical and accessible. Some feel like prayers, others like love letters to God. Tagore's language is simple but profound. You can read one poem a day or binge them all.
I keep this collection by my bedside. When life feels chaotic, Tagore's calm wisdom recenters me. These poems feel timeless, they work whether you're religious or not.
- Best for: Poetry lovers, spiritual seekers, anyone needing beauty and calm in their reading
- Vibes: Spiritual poetry, Nobel Prize winner, Bengali literature, divine love, lyrical, timeless
- Length: 133 pages, 103 poems, perfect for slow savoring
18 books under 200 pages that pack a punch
Real stories of death-row prisoners in India and their families, based on extensive research interviews.
Jahnavi Misra compiled these stories from Project 39A's research at National Law University, Delhi. Between 2013-2016, they interviewed death-row prisoners and their families. The result is devastating.
These aren't criminals in the abstract, they're humans with backgrounds, families, systemic failures. The book shows the socio-economic reality of who gets death sentences in India. It's not about guilt or innocence, it's about inequality.
I chose this because it's uncomfortable and necessary. These stories challenge how we think about justice and punishment. Misra doesn't sensationalize, she just lets the prisoners and families speak.
- Best for: Readers interested in criminal justice, inequality, and the human reality behind death sentences
- Vibes: Criminal justice, death penalty, non-fiction, interviews, systemic inequality, heartbreaking, important
- Length: 141 pages, challenging but crucial reading
Haunting poems about Kashmir, the beauty, the violence, the grief, the homeland torn apart.
Agha Shahid Ali is one of Kashmir's greatest poets. This collection is a love letter and an elegy. He writes about Kashmir's beauty, then its occupation and violence. The poems ache with longing for a place that's still there but unreachable.
Ali's language is gorgeous and heartbreaking. He uses traditional forms, ghazals, and canzones filled with modern pain. Every poem feels personal and political simultaneously.
These poems broke my heart. Ali captures what it means to love a place that's become a war zone. If you want to understand Kashmir's tragedy through art, start here.
- Best for: Poetry lovers and anyone wanting to understand Kashmir through beautiful, painful verse
- Vibes: Kashmir conflict, political poetry, longing, homeland loss, gorgeous language, devastating
- Length: 100 pages, poetry collection, read slowly
Indian Books That Will Change How You Think About Short Fiction
A little girl trades her leopard-claw pendant for a beautiful blue umbrella, and it changes an entire village.
Ruskin Bond is India's beloved children's author. This tiny story is set in the Garhwal hills. Binny, a young girl, falls in love with a bright blue umbrella. She trades her pendant for it. The umbrella becomes the village's obsession, especially for Ram Bharosa, a jealous shopkeeper.
Bond writes with simple charm. The story is about jealousy, innocence, and ultimately, generosity. In just 33 pages, ordinary villagers become heroic. The joy of giving wins.
I reread this every few years. It's comfort reading, warm, gentle, wise. Bond captures mountain village life perfectly. This little story has enormous heart.
- Best for: Everyone, kids discovering reading, adults needing comfort, anyone who loves simple, joyful stories
- Vibes: Children's classic, mountain village, innocence, generosity, comfort read, Ruskin Bond magic
- Length: 33 pages, finishes in 20 minutes, lingers forever
Nine short stories about people caught between India and America, tradition and modernity, what they want and what they're supposed to want.
Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for this collection. Each story is a small, perfect window into someone's life. A tour guide in India meets American tourists. A couple grieves a lost child. A woman falls for her husband's friend during a dinner party.
The stories are quiet but devastating. Lahiri notices tiny details, how someone holds a fork, what they don't say, and those details reveal everything. You can read one story per sitting or all nine in one evening.
I keep coming back to this book because every story lands differently depending on your mood. Sometimes "A Temporary Matter" wrecks me. Sometimes "Sexy" hits hardest. The collection grows with you.
- Best for: Short story lovers and anyone interested in South Asian diaspora experiences
- Vibes: Quiet heartbreak, cultural identity, marriage struggles, precise language, emotional depth, immigrant experience
- Length: 198 pages, 9 stories, perfect for bite-sized reading
A disillusioned teacher arrives in a remote Kerala village where reality blurs with myth and magic.
O.V. Vijayan is a Malayalam literary master. Ravi, a young man escaping personal tragedy, becomes a teacher in Khasak, a village where rationality doesn't apply. Gods walk among people. Dreams blend with waking life. The villagers live between the real and the mythical.
Vijayan's prose is dreamlike and poetic. The village feels alive, every character, animal, and tree has significance. It's not a plot-driven book; it's an experience. The narrative floats between reality and folklore.
I chose this because it's unlike any other Indian novel. Vijayan creates a world where magic realism feels natural, not forced. Reading it is like entering a trance. You won't understand everything, and that's the point.
- Best for: Readers who love magical realism, poetic prose, and stories that prioritize atmosphere over plot
- Vibes: Magical realism, Kerala village, dreamlike, philosophical, Malayalam literature, mystical, hypnotic
- Length: 182 pages, slow, meditative read.
I hope you like the list I’ve put up here. The best with the list is the length of the books. So grab them soonest if you haven’t read them already.
Which of these 18 books will you read first? Reply and let me know!
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Happy reading!
