The Home of British Asian Writing
Amma was ritualistically watering her plants, which included fighting with pigeons and making small talk with squirrels. The rodent droppings never bothered her but she would get colossally upset with bird shit. I think it was probably the unusual mixture of white and green or maybe it was just the quantity. Watering a plant was …
The normative definition of feminism is the endorsement of women’s rights, particularly that of achieving equality to men. This could be political, social, economic or even cultural for that matter. Feminism and Bangladesh. Two words that differ from the emergence of Britain’s New Woman during the Fin-de-siècle, the Western World’s First-Wave women’s suffrage movement and …
Shamika Shabnam has just finished her degree in English at University of Leicester. Whilst studying she was working on an e-placement at The Asian Writer. I tell her about Lifelines, an anthology of short stories written and edited by Bangladeshi women. She shakes her head. She hasn’t heard of it. I promise to bring a …
It’s not everyday that you enter a room filled with emerging British Asian writers so there was a certain anxiety and trepidation as I took my seat at the table at the recent un-conference hosted by Nicole Thiara of Nottingham Trent University and Kavita Bhanot, editor of Too Asian, Not Asian Enough. The agenda had …
David Henry Hwang’s Obie Award-winning Pulitzer prize finalist play Yellow Face will run for four weeks in the purpose built brand new state-of-the-art theatre in North London. Designed by David Hughes’ Architects, the theatre opened its doors for the first time earlier this month . In Yellow Face, art imitates life to great and amusing effect in …
The Asian Writer caught up with poet extraordinaire, Sweta Vikram to talk about her latest collection, No Ocean Here
The Asian Writer talks to Ayad Akhtar on the eve of the opening night of his Pulitzer Prize winning debut play, Disgraced
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 …
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 …
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 …