ME & MY SHELF: Benyamin's Top-10 Reads

Benyamin is an Indian novelist and writer of short stories in Malayalam. His 2008 book Goat Days won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. Another novel Jasmine Days was awarded the JCB Prize for Literature and the Crossword Book Award (both in 2018). His latest works include Al Arabian Novel Factory and Body and Blood.

- SAPTAK CHOUDHURY

The Last Temptation of Christ

BY NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS, Faber, ₹ 599

This is a novel that unravels the Christ we know from the Bible. For me, it is the most creative presentation of the struggles he faced in his growth from man to divinity.

My Name is Red: A Novel

BY ORHAN PAMUK, Vintage, ₹ 799

The novel depicts the conflict and resentment between the painters who were commissioned a book, to be produced during the reign of the 16th-century Ottoman king Murat III. It evolves into a dialogue between the paintings of the West and the East. Each chapter has a different narrative style presented by each of the characters. This and the delicious suspense that keeps going till the end make this work brilliant.

My Name Is Red My Name is Red is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex and power.