Books like Maila Anchal by Phanishwar Nath Renu

Set during the 1947 partition, Khushwant Singh’s classic follows the village of Mano Majra as it faces the horrors of communal violence and follows a Sikh boy and Muslim girl whose love transcends the conflict.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland traces two brothers—Subhash, who settles in America, and Udayan, who joins a political uprising in Calcutta—and their divergent paths until a tragic event forces a return to India and a quest to mend family bonds.

Set in a small-town frontier province in 1947, just before Partition, Tamas tells the story of a sweeper named Nathu who is bribed and deceived by a local Muslim politician to kill a pig, ostensibly for a veterinarian. The following morning, the carcass is discovered on the steps of the mosque and the town, already tension-ridden, erupts. Enraged Muslims massacre scores of Hindus and Sikhs, who, in turn, kill every Muslim they can find. Finally, the area's British administrators call out the army to prevent further violence. The killings stop but nothing can erase the awful memories from the minds of the survivors, nor will the various communities ever trust one another again. The events described in Tamas are based on true accounts of the riots of 1947 that Sahni was a witness to in Rawalpindi, and this new and sensitive translation by the author himself resurrects chilling memories of the consequences of communalism which are of immense relevance even today.