Asian writer Azma Dar has been awarded the prize for Fiction in the New Writing Ventures Awards 2007. (September 12) Her entry, The Secret Arts, is a colourful first chapter of a novel set in Muree, a hill town in Pakistan, where a wedding is about to take place. The story introduces us to …
The Fudge Club by Yamboy
It was in the middle of the Great Fudge Recession that Fudgie Fudgerson decided he needed to do something about the fudge crisis that was hampering the government’s efforts to boost the country’s morale. Fudge prices were at an all-time high. They had invaded neighbouring countries for their Weapons of Mass Fudging, only to find …
Integrate by Leela Soma
Integrate! Assimilate! I have given up my sari, I have given up my bindi I wear your dress I don your make up. I have given up my language, I speak yours, Och aye the noo, I buy my ‘messages’ not send them, I ‘flit’ when I move house, If yous cannae make it out, …
The Money Carpet by Abhijit Dasgupta
Abhijiit Dasgupta is an Indian editor with over twenty five years. He currently works in Kolkata as the editor of India Today. He has recently completed his debut novel The Vice Song. Anirban always thought he was like a flower. Small, pink, slightly soiled, the sort you see lying unheeded beside some trees in a …
Early Morning by Mir Mahfuz Ali
Early Morning Two friends playing with marbles on the dark smooth ground under the soft chin of a tall shimul tree long beyond its bloom. The dust above them chewing the tree like a caterpillar. * They never asked why the sudden thunder of silence flickering in the tin sky wrenching the morning. Komol’s wren-boned …
The Secret Arts by Azma Dar
Azma Dar is currently working on her debut novel aswell as a play based on a true story set in WW2, Noor, for which she received an Arts Council grant in 2006. Her first play Chaos, the story of a Muslim family, set in the aftermath of 9/11, was read as one of ten pieces in Kali …
Starting a new term with Bali Rai
As the new school term gets underway, TAWP caught up with a writer who’ll be spending most of his year in schools. Bali Rai has a real commitment to get children to read. For Bali, the greatest thing about being a writer is for a young reader to say ‘your book made me want to …
Writing about life: Imran Ahmad
Imran Ahmad’s Unimagined (2007) is the beguiling memoir of a Muslim boy born in Pakistan, who moves to London aged two and grows up to embrace the West. The endearing narrator recalls his childhood in a series of vivid snapshots. TAWP caught up with Imran Ahmad… Why did you feel the urge to write this book, and …
Roopa Farooki on Bitter Sweets
Bitter Sweets is a wonderful debut story about love and the complexities of family deceit, stretching into three generations. Set in London on the 1980’s and 90’s it is an addictive read, the characters incredibly real and enticing. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for News Writers, TAWP speaks to Roopa Farooki about the book which …
Priya Basil on Ishq and Mushq
Ishq and Mushq is a sensuous generational novel about a Sikh mother whose secret past corrodes her life with tragic consequences for all. Spanning the second half of the twentieth century, and moving between India, Africa and Britain this moving and funny family saga dramatizes how Ishq can redeem and compromise and Mushq can seduce …