Try GOLD - Free
What is Real could Also be Unreal
The New Indian Express Hubballi
|October 26, 2025
The narrative explores how performance blurs the boundaries between identity, truth, and family
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, Katie Kitamura’s Audition is a profound meditation on the nature of performance and its place in the institution of family. Spare, unsettling, and psychologically astute, the book blurs the line between truth and illusion, between roles performed and lives lived. Composed of two narratives, it probes the fragile boundaries of identity, parenthood, and intimacy.
The first part opens with an unnamed narrator (a middle-aged woman) meeting a younger man (in his mid-twenties) for lunch. The woman is an established actress who can no longer distinguish between what is a performance and what is real. The young man claims to be her son. However, the narrator maintains that she never gave up any child for adoption. She never gave birth; she had an abortion. As the second part begins, the narrator and her husband, Tomas, invites Xavier to move into their home. He is their son, or so it seems.
This story is from the October 26, 2025 edition of The New Indian Express Hubballi.
Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MORE STORIES FROM The New Indian Express Hubballi
The New Indian Express Hubballi
Former ISI chief gets 14 years in jail
PAKISTAN’S former spy chief Faiz Hameed was on Thursday sentenced to 14 years in jail by a military court, which found him guilty on multiple charges, including violating the Official Secrets Act and engaging in political activities.
1 min
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
Prez visits Manipur amid shutdown call by rebels
PRESIDENT Droupadi Murmu arrived in Manipur on Thursday on a two-day visit amid a shutdown called by a body of banned insurgent groups.
1 min
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
VIKSIT WOMEN FOR A VIKSIT BHARAT
WHEN the Government of India released a report titled Children in India 2025, one statistic stood out quietly but powerfully: at the secondary school level, girls are now marginally ahead of boys in enrolment.
3 mins
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
Almost a quarter of real estate buyers in Dubai are NRIs
WITH the new property ownership norms under which the Dubai government has allowed foreigners to own residential and commercial properties on a freehold basis, the real estate market in the city-state has seen a major shift and almost a quarter of units have been snapped up by NRIs.
2 mins
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
Luthra brothers detained in Thailand, Delhi court dismisses anticipatory bail
SAURABH Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, the co-owners of the Goa restaurant where 25 were killed due a fire incident on Saturday, were detained by the Thailand police early on Thursday on the request of the Indian government.
1 min
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
100 booked, 40 detained as farm stir against ethanol unit steps up in Raj
FORTY people, including a Congress leader, were detained and over 100 others booked in Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh district on Thursday, a day after a clash broke out between farmers and police during a protest over the construction of an ethanol factory in the district.
1 min
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
Once a Maoist hotbed, olympics begins in Bastar
CHHATTISGARH Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai on Thursday inaugurated the three-day division-level annual Bastar Olympics at the Indira Priyadarshini Stadium in Jagdalpur, where athletes from the seven districts of the Bastar division presented an impressive march-past.
1 min
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
Maha debt moves up from ₹7.8L cr to 9.3L cr this year
WITH continuous high-interest borrowing and the tabling of over additional %75,000 crore supplementary demands in the ongoing Maharashtra Assembly, the cumulative debt burden of Maharashtra is projected to go up from 27.82 lakh crore in 2024—25 to €9.32 lakh crore by the end of the current financial year.
1 mins
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
ROW OVER QUALITY OF KERALA MEDICINE
THE Rajya Sabha on Thursday witnessed a protest during Zero Hour from the CPI(M) over allegations of spurious and substandard medicines in Kerala.
1 min
December 12, 2025
The New Indian Express Hubballi
ACCESS FOR DISABLED MUST COVER ALL SPACES
THE Supreme Court's December 2 judgement on ensuring full accessibility for persons with disabilities inside prisons is far more than a routine legal directive.
1 mins
December 12, 2025
Listen
Translate
Change font size