New Delhi: Romance and literature have always intertwined with each other to create riveting manuscripts. Be it Heathcliff’s raw passion in Emily Brontë’s novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ or the strange affection shared between Hazel and Augustus in John Green’s ‘The Fault in our Stars’.
From the Pulitzer winning 1937 novel, ‘Gone with the wind’ to ‘The Notebook’ by Nicolas Sparks, authors for years have written about the perfect love, immortalising the feeling in verses and stories.
For author Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, Haruki Murakami’s ‘Norwegian Wood’, is her absolute favourite. “It is my absolute go to book when my world is falling apart; to reinstate what I believe makes us tick, friendship and first loves.” The author reveals that she always reads this novel, at least once a year to reaffirm her thoughts that “love, no matter how fleeting or ephemeral its consistency or duration maybe, finds us, somehow.”
For author Rakhshanda Jalil, Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is one book that perfectly captures the idea of an intelligent romance. “The wooing of a thinking woman by a man who respects her intelligence is an unorthodox choice but nevertheless I do find it deeply romantic novel,” Jalil says.
Chirag Bagadia, author of ‘Knotty Affairs’ adds that ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez happens to his favourite in the genre of romance. “Flawlessly translated, it is one of the best portrayals of autumnal love,” he says, adding, “Talking about various layers of unrequited love and about love outside the convention of marriage, it underlines that love, with all its colours, always believes in a second chance.”
Adding to the list, Sandip Roy, author of ‘Don’t Let Him Know’ says that while he does not think of as a book about romance but he always loved ‘A Suitable Boy’. He adds, “The book shows love can come in so many shades, the very wildly romantic, the taboo, the crazy, the besotted, and the stolidly practical. And lately I’ve relished the wickedly witty ‘Less’ because aging gay men and love are rarely considered subject of serious literature.”
Finally for author of ‘It’s Easy to be You’ Radhika Kawlra Singh, ‘The English Patient’ by Michael Ondaatje perfectly captures the vagaries of love. “I feel in love with the Hungarian desert explorer, Laslo. The book is imbued with the spirit of parallel adventure,” Singh concludes.
