Jungle Book

Avtar Singh creates a compelling tableau of characters brought together and torn asunder by migration, epidemic and circumstance

- Aditya Mani Jha

In the five years since the world woke up to the realities of the Covid-19 era, there has already been a string of brilliant, inquisitive novels about the unique and unprecedented nature of this time. Ali Smith's Companion Piece, Louise Erdrich's Sentence and Gary Shteyngart's Our Country Friends spring to mind as three novels that approach the problem admirably in very different ways. We can now add Avtar Singh's Into the Forest to this 'pandemic canon'. Within a svelte 160-odd pages, Singh has crafted a compelling tableau of characters brought together and torn asunder by migration, epidemic and circumstance.