The Home of British Asian Writing
One of my stories had been selected for BareLit anthology, but that’s not the reason I packed a jam sandwich and caught a morning train to attend its festival last April. Only a month before, the government had announced that it was initiating an official EU withdrawal process. Like so many people I was feeling …
Once upon a time there was Woodstock and Glastonbury. For those literary minded there was the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts and the Edinburgh Book Festival. Now there isn’t a continent across the globe that doesn’t host a festival of one sort or another. Ranked third in the world by The Writers Academy is The Zee Jaipur …
The first Karachi Literature Festival held at Southbank (May 20) brought together Pakistan’s finest writers, old and new, and a passionate audience eager to discover new voices. When I first heard that KLF was coming to the Southbank Centre this year, I was filled with excitement. The programme included a mixture of familiar names, Mohammed …
In April this year, The Asian Writer launched a collection of short stories featuring exciting new voices featured on this year’s The Asian Writer Short Story Prize shortlist. Dividing Lines was launched in early Spring at the Birmingham Literature Festival, and hosted by broadcaster Bidisha. A number of writers, including Meera Betab, Namita Chakrabarty, Farhana …
Mahsuda Snaith’s mesmerising first novel The Things We Thought We Knew is a story full of twists and turns that blurs the lines between reality, memory and imagination. Eighteen year-old Ravine Roy has been bed-bound due to chronic pain syndrome for the last eleven years. From her bed, Ravine describes the Leicester council estate where …
A new crowdfunded book hopes to show the world as others see it, raising funds for refugee and anti-hate charities. Charles Fernyhough, writer and psychologist set up the project on Unbound Books last month. ‘Across the world, intolerance of otherness is growing: in Donald Trump’s America, in Brexit Britain and in a Europe seared by …
It wasn’t until the brink of his thirties, that Rishi Dastidar started reading and writing poetry. Before then, his passion was music, specifically indie rock. It’s not surprising then, that Dastidar invites his readers to play the song ‘Gone Without Feeling’ by Black Ryder ‘before, during or after reading his debut collection,’ suggesting the two …
The Things I Would Tell You is a collection of new writing by British Muslim women, edited by writer Sabrina Mahfouz. The project started life more than two years ago and stemmed from Mahfouz’s work with high school girls. “There was nothing to go to, to see the wealth of writing that has come from …
Poet in residence at Radio 4, Daljit Nagra will curate a series of new commissions in response to Europe’s second oldest poem, Homer’s The Odyssey. The Odyssey Project: My Name is Nobody will feature ten writers from various diasporas to create new radio poems. Showcased over a fortnight, the project will introduce the poets and …
When my daughter was four, she made me a book. It’s full of secret writing. She says I can decide what the writing says. Which made me think – is that what novels are like for writers – a book in our heads full of secret writing? We might transcribe it, or type it or …