Qabar

Construction has begun on a temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, and in a small town in central Kerala, voices seem to seep up from the earth. A district court judge and a petitioner in an ordinary property quarrel meet at the first hearing, and that encounter throws the judge's life into confusion. Strange occurrences multiply: the fragrance of pink Edward roses, snakes with shimmering scales, a ghostly presence, and the uncanny yet scientifically studied phenomenon of vanishing twins. Girls drift just above the ground, and bad-tempered ancestors hold absurd amounts of power.

Beneath this dreamlike setting, the novella confronts harsh truths about the tangled histories of Hindus and Muslims in India and about the gulfs that separate men and women. Written by K.R. Meera and translated from the Malayalam by Nisha Susan, the book suggests that court verdicts never fully settle the matters they decide.