by Shamika Shabnam
 
 
 
“Every twelve-year-old boy pressed into battle by them, every ten-year-old girl forcibly married to mullah eight times her age, every man lashed, every woman beaten, every limb broken.”
The Blind Man’s Garden is a heart-rending novel, unveiling the perilous conditions of post 9/11 Afghanistan.  Jeo and Mikal, two friends from the fictional town of Heer in Pakistan, become victims to this peril when they secretly travel to Afghanistan with the philanthropic desire to help the wounded victims. Physical wounds inevitably align emotional suffering as Jeo comes to terms with …

Lists are a contentious issue. If you haven’t yet woken up to the news about the Granta’s 2013 Best Young British Novelists then here’s a link to the Guardian piece. A while ago now on Twitter, Roopa Farooki and Nikesh Shukla were talking about the Granta list, Roopa Farooki suggested a Best Young Asian Novelists which I thought was a fab idea (at the time!) and said I would draw up a list. But having spent such a long time reading the work of both new and established writers I …

Q. You’re clearly not an Asian writer but what is it about South Asia, particularly Pakistan that inspired In the Orchard, the Swallows?
Q. What are your personal experiences of Pakistan and why did you feel compelled to tell this story? What other experiences did you draw on to make the plot work?
It’s hard to separate the answers to these two questions, so here’s one long answer for you. I went to Pakistan in 1997, after finishing university. I’d been offered a job in the British Foreign Office, and was taking …

<The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature, now in its seventh year is the only UK festival dedicated to pan-Asian writings, cultures, authors and peoples and will take place at Asia House and other prestigious cultural venues around the capital in April and May.
In 2013, this truly unique Festival widens its remit to include more than 15 countries, with authors from Turkey, Syria and parts of the Middle East appearing alongside authors writing about Afghanistan, Burma, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Britain.
The theme for 2013 …

DWL SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2013
The DWL annual short story competition aims to encourage fiction writing and promote new writers. Now in its second year, the competition is open to writers of all ages around the world.
The top three entries will be published in the next issue of Papercuts magazine and will receive copies of How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia – the new, critically acclaimed novel by Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid. Of these, one lucky winner will be selected for the 50,000 PKR Dastaan Award, a new writing …