Raising the profile of South Asian writers since 2007
Q. What’s the response been like to your collection, Small Hands? Wonderful. Humbling. I think because because the writing travels through elegy, fantasy and uses form it seems as if everyone has his or her favourite poem. Being shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best first collection was a huge honour particularly as it was …
What inspired this new piece of theatre? When I first came to live in the UK in the late 1990’s, I noticed particularly South Asian women of the first generation of migrants wearing saris much like my mother and aunts would back home although with heavy winter coats and cardigans. The sari was not just …
by Leila Rasheed I’m going to start with a story about stories, one of the incidents that made me realise that I had to make Megaphone a reality. I was sitting in the café in Birmingham’s new central library. At the table next to me were four children, aged perhaps eleven. Two boys and two …
Q. Tell us about the inspiration behind your latest poetry collection, wet silence? I would say there were several inspirations accumulated over the years that inspired “Wet Silence.” But the main was what NovelistChimamanda Adichie’s beautifully shared in one of her Ted Talks: the fear of just one story representing an entire culture. India is a big country and …
Q. Where did your journey of writing poetry begin? Very atypically, I can pinpoint an exact moment where I had a damascene conversion – where poetry very suddenly entered my life properly, for the first time. Back in about 2008 I was in the big Borders on Oxford Street in London, idly browsing – I’d …
Q. Firstly, can you tell us a bit more about your theatre company and the ethos behind its formation. MUJU began life as the Muslim & Jewish Youth Theatre project in 2004. I was interested in the project as I’ve always enjoyed performing and writing. There is something quite unique about the relationship between British …
For anyone looking to add some excitement to their reading list over the summer, here’s a round up of books that we think are perfect for those long summer nights. Meera Syal’s much awaited third novel, The House of Hidden Mothers was published earlier this month. It’s an interesting premise which explores India’s surrogacy industry and …
Shakeel Aziz Bradford based, Shakeel Aziz started writing in 2010. As a youth worker he wanted to explore how he could use fiction to talk about issues facing young people. He hoped to create a framework, a starting point of discussion for teachers and agencies who come into contact with troubled teens. But once he …
Q. What inspired you to write Blood? Where did the story come from? The initial commission from Tamasha Theatre was an adaptation of Lorca’s classic Blood Wedding to a contemporary setting. I knew, early on, that adapting 1930’s rural spain to 21st century inner city UK, was going to involve a massive shift, a change …
by Adrienne Loftus Parkins If there is such a thing as a literature festival season, it’s now. Lit fests seem to be coming at us from all angles, in all parts of the country. When the weather improves, readers and writers come out in masses to talk about what they’ve been reading over the winter. …