Raising the profile of South Asian writers since 2007
by Adrienne Loftus Parkins This is shaping up to be a big year for Asian literature with new books from big name authors Rushdie, Ishiguro and Ghosh publishing new novels and volume of poetry coming from Vikram Seth. But what about the rest? Here are my top 3 picks for the year. Sandip Roy has already …
reviewed by Nigel Collett Two poets bestrode the cultural life of the Hindu and Muslim communities of India before Partition: for the Hindus, Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali sage; for the Muslims, Allama Sir Muhammad Iqbal, a Punjabi Muslim of Kashmiri descent. Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature, was knighted (though he returned his knighthood …
reviewed by Divya Dubey The Golden Pigeon, Shahid Siddiqui’s debut work of fiction, is best described not so much as a historical novel but as a historical fantasy. Using the contradictions faced by Muslims in post-Partition India as the foundation of his story, the author has layered in elements of magic realism: his is a …
Indian writers score hat trick win for $50k prize The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 has been awarded to Jhumpa Lahiri for her novel, The Lowland at this year’s ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival. Jury chair Keki N. Daruwalla said, “The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri is a superb novel written in restrained prose with moments of …
Kalki is a wild, exciting, mysterious , 15 year old girl. She is also, possibly, the 10th incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. But now she has gone missing and her two best friends – who had not met her until she appeared a week ago – must try and explain to the police exactly …
by Aliya Ali-Afzal In November I wrote 50k words in one month. It would normally take me a whole year to write that much. So, how did I make this leap? It felt like magic but in reality it was a series of more prosaic steps that anyone can take, to reach a seemingly impossible …
by Sweta Srivastava Vikram At the Oscars this year, Robert De Niro’s intro of the best screenplay nominees caught the attention of many: “The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing”, he said, before continuing, “Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination and consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good …
Zafar Anjum A lot of my reading this year and the last has been around two totally unrelated themes—poet Muhammad Iqbal and start up ecosystems. I was reading books on these two themes as research for the two books that I had been working on. Among the few others that …
The Asian Writer caught up with Bidisha to find out more about her serialised novel, Esha Ex.
by Sita Brahmachari A few years ago I was sitting at an award ceremony – the Redbridge Book Award – in front of an audience of about five hundred school students involved in a borough wide competition to decide on their favourite books. It’s a real honour to receive any award for your work but …