“For these people, the Jarawas were as much myth as the ghosts or the gods inhabiting the unknown forests of their own imagination,” writes Pankaj Sekhsaria in his debut novel, The Last Wave. ‘These people’ are refugees from East Bengal, who began settling down on the outskirts of the Andaman Islands’ Jarawa Reserve in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Despite living in close proximity to the Jarawas for several decades, the Bengali settlers have had little interaction with one of the world’s most isolated tribes.

Author Pankaj Sekhsaria and the cover of his book, 'The Last Wave'