Annie Zaidi: A Brief Bit of Magic
In conversation with Annie Zaidi about her love for theatre and playwriting, where 'The Comeback' came from, and the trust and solidarity that the arts require.
Latest
Win a Sponsored Entry to the Desperate Literature Prize 2025
Helter Skelter will sponsor five promising Indian writers for the Desperate Literature Prize 2025.
Alina Gufran: A Sacred Private Practice
In conversation with Alina Gufran about her debut novel 'No Place to Call My Own' and how her experience as a filmmaker helps her write better.
Experimenta 2024: New and Old Discoveries
In conversation with Shai Heredia, founder of Experimenta, on the film festival's role in taking Indian experimental cinema to the world.
The 27-Step Skincare Routine
What is the cost of beauty? When did skincare become so complicated, and is all of it really necessary?
In the Insect Colony
Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction. This story by J L Bogenschneider was one of the final shortlisted entries for the prize in 2024.
The Decade of the Indian Internet Novel
Not only is the Internet Novel in India an experiment with contemporary form, but also a sign of a difficult political moment.
Open Worlds, Organic Truths
A man tends to his flock of clouds. A beehive’s queen finds herself threatened by members of her royal court. A woman sees messages in the murmurations of starlings. Gigi Ganguly’s Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World is a collection of twenty-two short stories that explore the natural
The Promises of Possibility
Think back to a moment when you made a split-second decision. What if you had chosen differently? What if you could rewrite your life? In Dharini Bhaskar’s Like Being Alive Twice, we explore this possibility through two diverging timelines---the life that Poppy actually leads, and the life she could
Win a Free Entry to the Desperate Literature Prize 2024
[The window for submissions is now closed.]Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize celebrates the best of new short fiction from around the world. In addition to cash awards and writing retreats, Prize-winning and shortlisted authors have
Time and Space and a Complicated Place
In Tashan Mehta’s Mad Sisters of Esi, islands are alive, memories are dimensions we can navigate, and the universe is a sea on which ships of discovery sail. Two sisters---Laleh and Myung---live within the whale of babel, which houses unimaginable worlds. But Myung wants to leave. Her journey leads
Fever Dreams and Buried Truths
Four defining moments in India’s past and present weave together in Siddhartha Deb’s The Light at the End of the World, an expansive, sweeping novel of fever dreams and buried truths. Real-world history bleeds into the speculative as we follow its characters back in time. In a near-future
Fertile Ground in Grey Spaces
In Praveena Shivram’s debut novel, Karuppu, the land of the dead is a shifting, moving spiral, presided over by Yama, lord of the dead. But Yama is missing, and in his absence, chaos reigns. A prophecy comes to light, and two children from vastly different worlds become caught up
The Abstraction of Desire
Tejaswini Apte-Rahm’s debut novel, The Secret of More, is an ode to an India that has been relegated to the past. It is the picture of an India bustling with activity and insatiable hunger, and almost all of its characters hunger for more. This intensity of passion and ambition
Identity: Vol. 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing
No Visible Wound
Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction. This story by Mariana Roa Oliva was one of the final shortlisted entries for the prize in 2022. I just want to say two things about Pachuca. First: Pachuca es una ciudad darks. And second: Rebo,
Now Available: 'Identity', vol. 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing
Volume 7
Pre-order Identity, vol. 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing
Volume 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing features 22 new and original pieces of short-fiction and poetry from India, handpicked by Mridula Koshy (If It Is Sweet, Not Only the Things That Have Happened, Bicycle Dreaming) and Sumana Roy (How I Became a Tree, Missing, Out of
A Certain Degree of Ownership
Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction. This story by Jan Carson was one of the final shortlisted entries for the prize in 2021. Sean says it isn’t safe, swimming alone. “No one will notice if you’re drowning,” he says. “If
Throwback Tuberculosis
Imagine losing weight with no effort. Your cheekbones drop their fleshy curtains, raising your face to the beauty standards you have been made to internalise. Collar bones pierce their way out of your skin, beckoning beautiful pendants to come nest in between. Your stomach sucks in of its own accord,
What Would It Mean If Women Were Allowed to Dream?
As a young girl, my grandmother loved to swim. She was born in what was then East Pakistan, in Barisal, where her family still lives. Even now her voice and laugh are a wheeze. They fill the room. She is a large woman, with a loud voice often on the
Book Review: The Anger of Saintly Men
The Anger of Saintly Men, the first work of fiction by award-winning author and filmmaker Anubha Yadav, calls out toxic masculinity within the Indian family and society at large through its nuanced and unafraid take on what it means to be a “man” in India. Narrated linearly through the lives
Book Review: The Black Anthology: Language
Language and culture, through literature, film, theatre, and music, embody ideas and thoughts that shape how we perceive ourselves--- as individuals, a community, and in relation to the rest of the world. Art thereby grows into much more than just a form of creativity; it becomes a form of resistance