The 14 Best Indian Novels in English

Booker winners share the field with Bombay satires and quiet family novels, set anywhere from Kerala backwaters to Himalayan hill towns. Each one was written in English by an author with Indian roots.

1. 1
   Midnight's Children

   Salman Rushdie's 1981 Booker winner about Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of India's independence and bound to the nation's fate.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The God of Small Things

   Arundhati Roy's 1997 Booker-winning debut about twins Estha and Rahel and the forbidden love that breaks a Kerala family.
   653pts
3. 3
   The Inheritance of Loss

   Kiran Desai's 2006 Booker winner set between a Himalayan town near Kalimpong and the kitchens of New York.
   502pts
4. 4
   Em and the Big Hoom

   Jerry Pinto's 2012 Bombay novel about a son and the mother whose mental illness shapes the whole family.
   435pts
5. 5
   Serious Men

   Manu Joseph's 2010 Mumbai satire about a Dalit research assistant who passes his son off as a genius.
   435pts
6. 6
   The Guide

   R. K. Narayan's 1958 novel about Raju, a Malgudi tourist guide who is mistaken for a holy man.
   356pts
7. 7
   The Shadow Lines

   Amitav Ghosh's 1988 novel moving between Calcutta, Dhaka and London across two generations of one family.
   356pts
8. 8
   Sea of Poppies

   Amitav Ghosh's 2008 opening of the Ibis trilogy, gathering a ship of indentured migrants on the eve of the Opium Wars.
   261pts
9. 9
   The White Tiger

   Aravind Adiga's 2008 Booker winner, narrated by driver Balram Halwai as he climbs out of servitude in modern India.
   261pts
10. 10
    The Great Indian Novel

    Shashi Tharoor's 1989 satire that retells the Mahabharata as the story of India's independence movement.
    261pts
11. 11
    A Suitable Boy

    Vikram Seth's 1993 doorstopper set in 1950s north India, following Rupa Mehra's search for a suitable husband for her daughter Lata.
    261pts
12. 12
    A Fine Balance

    Rohinton Mistry's 1995 novel about four strangers sharing a cramped Bombay flat during the Emergency.
    261pts
13. 13
    Burnt Sugar

    Avni Doshi's Booker-shortlisted debut about a Pune daughter caring for the mother who once neglected her.
    261pts
14. 14
    The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

    Arundhati Roy's 2017 second novel, centred on Anjum, a hijra who builds a guest house in a Delhi graveyard.
    261pts

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