(image: author Arundhati Roy)

Arundhati Roy's announces her second fiction work after 19 years 
Roy will come out with her next work of fiction in June 2017, 19 years after her Booker prize-winning novel 'The God of Small Things' was published. 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' will be published by Hamish Hamilton UK and Penguin India. "I am glad to report that the mad souls (even the wicked ones) in 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' have found a way into the world, and that I have found my publishers," Roy said. "To publish this book is both a pleasure and an honour. What an incredible book it is - on multiple levels; one of the finest  we have read in recent times," said Simon Prosser, Publishing Director of Hamish Hamilton & Penguin Books UK; and Meru Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Literary Publishing of Penguin Random House India. According to Roy's literary agent David Godwin, "Only Arundhati could have written this novel. Utterly original. It has been 20 years in the making. And well worth the wait." 

Adite Banerjie's 'Coaching Class' wins top honours at an international screenwriting contest

Adite Banerjie, a New Delhi-based author and screenwriter, is among the top three winners of a Hollywood-based scriptwriting competition. The Finish Line Scriptwriting Competition, based out of Los Angeles, announced the three winners of its scriptwriting contest and Banerjie's drama screenplay titled 'Coaching Class' was judged as the first runner-up. The contest was held online so that screenwriters from all over the world can participate. "This contest win is a huge validation for my scriptwriting abilities and I'm positive it will open many doors in the highly competitive screenwriting arena for me," Banerjie said. 
The competition is mentored by a host of Hollywood professionals, including Neal Edelstein (producer of "The Ring" and "Mulholland Drive"), Gloria Fan, Vice President at Fox 21 Productions, Tribeca Productions' Issac Kaz and Jack Leslie, who produced all the 'X-Men' movies. Banerjie's latest novel 'No Safe Zone' was released in July 2016. She has also written two romance novels -- "The Indian Tycoon's Marriage Deal" and 'Trouble Has a New Name'. 

Paris finally shows some love for Oscar Wilde



It has taken more than a century, but France is finally paying fulsome tribute to Oscar Wilde, the writer who died penniless in a fleapit Paris hotel saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go." The first major exhibition in the French capital on the Irish wit and playwright opens this week. Its "hugely touching" final rooms chart his tragic end in the city, exiled and disgraced aged only 46. Wilde fled to Paris in 1897 after being hounded out of England. His grandson Merlin Holland, who has helped put the show together, said it is "still very hard to read" some of his letters written on blue prison paper "where Oscar is on his knees" begging for clemency. "To see him have to plead like is quite hard to take. Having to say that he was 'suffering from the most horrible form of erotomania... which left him the prey of the most revolting passions' was just not Oscar. It showed how desperate he was," said Holland. 

Ruskin Bond deals with the supernatural in new book



Ghost stories' fans here's some good news for you: storyteller Ruskin Bond's latest offering is a collection of supernatural tales. 'Whispers in the Dark: A Book of Spooks' is an anthology of strange and dark stories. Some of them are all-time favourites while some have been exclusively written for this collection, published by Puffin Books. In the book, readers will befriend Jimmy the jinn who has trouble keeping his hands to himself, be witness to the mischief of the 'pisach' and 'churel' who live in the peepul tree, and find themselves in the company of a blood-thirsty vampire cat, among other tales written in Bond’s inimitable style and riveting to the core. "Everyone likes to hear stories about haunted houses; even skeptics will listen to a ghost story, while casting doubts on its veracity," says Bond.

Missing Van Gogh paintings found in an Italian mafia country house



Two stolen Vincent Van Gogh paintings worth millions of euros were found in an Italian country house belonging to an alleged mafia drug smuggler, police said on Friday, 14 years after they disappeared in a daring heist in Amsterdam. Italian investigators displayed the recovered artworks - a sea scene and a church where the painter's father was minister - to reporters in Naples, saying each was worth an estimated 50 million euros ($56 million). The paintings were found wrapped in cloth inside a safe in a country house south of Naples that prosecutors said belonged to Raffaele Imperiale, a 41-year-old businessman accused in January of running an international cocaine trafficking ring together with high-ranking mobsters from a clan made famous in the 2008 film "Gomorra". Imperiale is a fugitive and Italian investigators suspect he is living and running a construction business in Dubai. But the arrests of 11 members of his alleged ring in January, including one man who turned state's witness, led investigators to the paintings.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss.