Raising the profile of South Asian writers since 2007
Zarqa Nawaz has carved a career out of ‘writing the funny.’ She created hit show, Little Mosque on the Prairie, the first of its kind to put Muslims on Canadian TV. Her memoir, Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, published last month, captures the realities and absurdities of life for a practicing Muslim woman …
It was after a horrific accident that journalist, Radhika Sanghani turned her hand to writing fiction. Sanghani wrote her first book, Virgin, a 21 year old’s mission to lose her virginity in a month, during her recovery from a coach crash. She was suffering from post traumatic stress and needed to do something positive. ‘I spent a …
by Jacqui Lofthouse Is there such a thing as a ‘mistake’ in writing? It’s a curious question, as of course, there’s no such thing as the ‘perfect’ work of fiction and so it follows that everyone makes mistakes in their writing, all the time. However, the more obvious mistakes most often occur in a first …
by Adrienne Loftus Parkins Every few years, the question of stereotyping in Asian literature comes up for discussion. Many British Asian writers feel that publishers try to push them to write about post colonial stereotypes of their community – arranged marriages, conflict between traditional and modern values, the search for identity. Cultural stereotyping is a …
by David Parker In March 2013 I stood up as Executive Director of the Man Asian Literary Prize (MALP) to introduce the Prize-giving Ceremony at what had become our usual venue in the Peninsula, Hong Kong, one of Asia’s most famous and historic hotels. At that moment there was a lot to reflect on. The …
It was after disappointing night at the theatre that Mahsuda Snaith turned her hand to playwriting. The evening left her feeling somewhat disillusioned about what makes good theatre. A seasoned novelist and short story writer, Snaith had attempted writing plays before, but found they didn’t always work. ‘I liked the premise of the play that night,’ …
Q. Your novel, A Bad Character took me in as soon as I read the first page. I couldn’t stop reading. Where did the protagonist, Idha’s, voice come from? It’s hard to say with any certainty. At first I was going to say: I don’t know, because it happened that I had a year where …
If you thought 2014 was a great year for fiction, check out these titles out in 2015.
reviewed by Divya Dubey Bani Basu is one of the most prolific writers in Bengal and a recipient of the Tarashankar Award forAntarghaat (Treason), and the Ananda Purashkar forMaitreya Jataka. She has also received the Sushila Devi Birla Award and the Sahitya Setu Puraskar. It is a pity that her work has not been more widely translated. …
by Adrienne Loftus Parkins After a many years of living in India, Singapore and China, I feel in a way like I ‘grew up’ reading books by Asian authors. I read a lot of books with Asian themes; I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, first for fun, then as part …