24 July, 2026 – Westland Books’ imprint, Tranquebar, announced the release of a new novel by writer and publisher (Indian Literature, Westland Books), Minakshi Thakur. Set in Delhi, Minakshi Thakur’s Grief Burns like Fever is a lyrical and deeply empathetic examination of life in the pandemic years. Evoking the surreal days of the second lockdown, the book introduces us to an unusual set of characters, including an ambulance driver and a nurse at a government-run hospital, a woman reevaluating her job and her marriage, and an orphan boy working at a doll factory, all of them seeking to navigate the ordinary in the most extraordinary times.
Sharing her thoughts, author Minaskhi Thakur says, ‘Using a global health crisis as its apocalyptic setting, Grief Burns Like Fever holds up a mirror to human society. Writing it during the second wave of Covid-19 became a way for me to cope with the isolation of the lockdown as well as the news of personal losses coming in every day. Several events described in the novel are based on true incidents. It was a cruel time that changed us all irrevocably. But it was also punctuated by small acts of kindness, which turn this into a tender story about love, hope and resilience.’
Grief Burns Like Fever is available for pre-orders on Amazon from 24 July 2026 and will be released across all major online and offline bookstores on 6 August 2026.
About the Book
As the city buckles under a harsh lockdown, lives get connected—and separated—by events beyond anybody’s control. An ambulance driver spends his days ferrying bodies from hospitals to crematoria, an adolescent struggles to survive after the loss of his mother, a woman attempts to make sense of her life and marriage, while another seeks to break free from a situation she has been captive in for decades. As each confronts grief, uncertainty and impossible choices, their lives intersect in unexpected ways.
A powerful novel about love and longing, Grief Burns Like Fever captures a moment in time that revealed both the fragility of life and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.
‘This novel is a dense narrative, born from within the misty cloud of a fatal fever, Its atmospheric. intensity blends realism, surrealism, delusion, dream and documentation to create a distinct work of fiction. Though anchored in a dystopian world, it does not shy away from offering glimmers of hope. Thakur presents the quiet traces of humanity as it stands and confronts future shock.’ — KHALID JAWED author of The Paradise of Food and The Book of Death
‘Grief Burns Like Fever does what only the most rigorous literary narratives do. It holds the pandemic not just as an event, or backdrop, but as a condition, a perennial fever that rewrites the bodies and relationships of ordinary people caught inside it. Minakshi Thakur brings a bilingual poet’s sensitive ear and an editor’s ruthlessness to this prose. Not a word is wasted, not a single wound is prettified. This novel earns every page, and is just the kind you would want to read slowly.’ — ANU SINGH author and screenwriter
About the Author
MINAKSHI THAKUR writes prose and poetry in English and Hindi. She has published three poetry collections and a novel. Her collection of Hindi poems, Neend ka Akhiri Pul, was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Young Writer’s Prize in 2010, while her debut English novel, Lovers Like You and I (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2014) was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize. She has also translated Haseena Manzil (forthcoming), a landmark Maithili novel by the late Padma Shri Usha Kiran Khan, into English.
Thakur’s day job has taken her from Katha to HarperCollins Publishers India, where she was in charge of its Hindi publishing and translation imprints. Since 2018, she has been leading Ekadā, a vibrant list of translations and original works across English and nine Indian languages.
