#13 — a spider weaves, weaves

but not too bold news & january's recommended book

Author

Hache Pueyo
January 30, 2025

Hello again,

Good news: BUT NOT TOO BOLD comes out in less than two weeks! You can still request an ARC on NetGalley (but not for long) or preorder it, but it will be out on February 11. If you want to check out what the hardcover looks like before buying the book, you can see a short video of the copies on my Instagram. This also means that I’ll probably have to send an extra newsletter or two in February and March because of the release and the interviews/podcasts, but worry not—I won’t flood your inboxes. I’ll keep it simple for your sake and mine, promise!

As I said last month, I’ll continue to share recommendations here, now including books published in English too (with a preference for translations and authors from the Global South, but not limited to them). Let’s just say I was very frustrated I couldn’t shout about some of my favorite reads of 2024 here. But I’m about to do it right now, so.

See you next month,

Hache 🕷️

The Sentence 🇮🇳

(Gautam Bhatia, 2024)

A hundred years ago, the assassination of a leader and the punishment of the man who killed him divided the city of Peruma in two neatly divided sides: the affluent Council, representing the remains of the old Empire, and the Commune, the anarchist collective of workers that was born in the aftermath of the murder. A heroic martyr to the Commune, and a reviled enemy to the Council, Jagat has been sentenced to the sleep of death, a punishment that lasts up to a century before the prisoner can no longer be kept alive, but can be reverted if they’re proved innocent.

The two sides agreed, then, to respect a treaty enforced by guardians, who are supposed to act as impartial lawyers and leave their previous allegiances behind. On the hundreth anniversary of the sentence, Nila, a brilliant young guardian from the Commune, is expected to take the most important case of her lifetime: the revision of the treaty, a trial that might change Peruma forever, for good or bad. Instead, she’s asked to reopen the assassination case and question everything that is known about the origins of the Commune, the revolution, and Jagat himself.

Something I absolutely loved about THE SENTENCE is how it embraces the fact that, in life, social and political issues don’t have simple or singular answers. Nila has to face an avalanche of doubts. On the one hand, she has the chance of righting a wrong done against an individual. On the other hand, this might widen the inequalities of their divided land. She has to be impartial, but complete neutrality is not only impossible—it’s often a political choice by itself. What is justice, in this context? Can justice and punishment coexist? Can social peace be achieved through forgetting? Who gets to enjoy said peace?

GOODREADS / AMAZON