#Review: Swansong by Vandana Kumari Jena

Swansong is a collection that doesn’t tiptoe into your reading life—it arrives like a soft knock on the door followed by a gust of cold wind. The cover design, again by Amrita Chakravorty, beautifully mirrors the book’s spirit: a quiet, lantern-lit path that feels peaceful at first glance but suggests shadows just beyond the frame. It’s visually elegant, almost deceptively so, given the emotional landmines inside.

Jena’s twenty-four stories are sharp, intimate slices of life where ordinary moments tilt unexpectedly into revelation. From the glimpse of the pages you shared, her writing is clean and unpretentious—almost conversational—but with a sting in the tail. She seems to specialise in the subtle shift: a line that changes your reading of a character, a detail that reframes an entire life. Her prose is like a still pond that suddenly ripples outward, pulling buried truths to the surface.

Not every story may land with the same force; a few, I suspect, rely more on twist than depth. But even then, Jena’s honesty holds you. These aren’t tales meant to soothe. They nudge, provoke, and linger like a half-remembered whisper.

If Swansong were a performance, it would be a quiet play where the real climax happens after the curtain falls—when you’re walking home and find your thoughts refusing to settle. A thoughtful, unsettling, and quietly defiant collection.

Find this book here.