Soot Red

Three years’ worth of contemporary Indian poet Sandhita Chandra’s work, written during her time as an undergraduate student in Delhi, highlights the young writer’s coming-of-age. These 51 poems contain her evolution from an uncertain style to a definitive aesthetic, cataloguing ideas that range from the unwaveringly feminist and anti-imperialist, to slice-of-life stories and humorous haikus. The transformation mapped in these pages, from childishly dark to self-consciously clever, is rare in its wit and honesty.

Read Sandhita’s maiden poetry collection for the words she wholly owns as she comes into her own with amusing musings and political perspectives.