In her debut novella, Daribha Lyndem gently lifts the curtain on the coming of age of a young Khasi woman and the politically charged city of Shillong in which she lives. Like the beloved school game from which it takes its name, the story meanders through ages, lives, and places. The interconnected stories build on each other to cover the breadth of childhood and move into the precarious awareness of adulthood. The book's child narrator grows up navigating issues of race, social class, and gender in the city, using innocent eyes to see the world afresh.

A shining debut, Name Place Animal Thing is an elegant examination of the porous boundaries between the adult world and that of a child. It has been shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2021, one of India's most valuable literature prizes.