Over April 21 and 22, Mumbai hosted its first literary festival for children. Held in the sprawling grounds of St Anthony’s School in Chembur in the city’s eastern suburbs, it was a wonderful occasion, filled with writing workshops, storytelling sessions, panel discussions, and much more. It was very heartening to...

After the disappointment of his last book, The Possibility of an Island, Michel Houellebecq – called, among other things, “France’s greatest literary export” – returns to his audacious, sardonic self in his new novel, The Map and the Territory. While a lot is made of Houellebecq’s nihilism and despair (Elementary Particles,...