Every year hundreds of interesting and quirky books slip under our radar thanks to information overload. In this series, we highlight books published this year you may have missed that are worth a second look.

How much do we know about what really goes on behind the scenes at our local supermarket?

This forms the subject of journalist Tazeen Ahmed’s fascinating debut book The Checkout Girl, published this summer.
Continue reading…

Every year hundreds of interesting and quirky books slip under our radar thanks to information overload. In this series, we highlight books published this year you may have missed that are worth a second look.

Scottish doctor and author Suhayl Saadi published his third book this year, a fictional ‘magical realism’ story titled Joseph’s Box.
Continue reading…

Every year hundreds of interesting and quirky books slip under our radar thanks to information overload. In this series, we highlight books published this year you may have missed that are worth a second look.

Former journalist Puneet Bhandal published the first and second in a series of Bollywood themed fiction series.
Continue reading…

Food writer and stylist Ravinder Bhogal’s debut book ‘Cook in Boots’ has won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for the UK’s Best First Cookbook.

She will challenge for the title of the World’s Best First Cookbook at the Paris Cookbook Fair on 11 February, 2010.

Ravinder said: “I am so delighted to have won this award as I am fully aware of how many excellent debut cookbooks were published this year.”
Continue reading…

The Independent on Sunday diary column reports:

She’s back: Farah Damji, the serial mistress, jailbird and perennial trouble-maker, once hailed London’s most dangerous woman, is holding a reading of her “explosive” autobiography on Wednesday [16th Dec].

Try Me came out in July but Damji was arrested on fraud charges soon after and has been busy defending herself in court ever since.

The book is chock-full of scandal, chronicling her claims to have had affairs with two high-profile figures – one an executive from The Guardian, the other a well-known travel writer – and even includes intimate email and text exchanges. Tom Cain, Gavin James Bower and Darcus Howe are lined up to read extracts at The Lamb on Holborn’s Lamb’s Conduit Street. Should be a big night out for the libel lawyers.

Continue reading…

Coming from a conservative family, Kia Abdullah (pictured) married a man she had met only once. But illustrating a determination that is become her defining characteristic, she walked out of the marriage after only two days.

That quiet determination also comes through in her writing; she’s the author of her second novel: a dark, sexual, often violent psychological crime thriller. We ask her about the book and whether it’s based on her tumultuous life.

You can also meet Kia at a book signing this Saturday 12th Dec. Details at the end.

What made you want to write this book?
I felt a lot of pressure to conform to the tradition of Asian writers writing about being Asian. Some beautiful books and stunning writing have come out of that tradition, but it has also been quite restrictive.

I felt that Asian writers couldn’t get published if they were writing sci-fi or horror or crime or any type of genre fiction; that it had to be sweeping literary novels or books linked to their heritage. I wanted to see if I could break through that. Luckily, I found an independent publisher that was brave enough to take on my project – one that didn’t say, “Let’s change Allegra’s name to Aisha”.
Continue reading…

by Joyeeta Basu
Freelance Writer

There seems to be an explicit shift in mood among Brit-Asian authors. Taking a step away from oft-repeated tales of forced marriages and identity crisis, the move is towards crystallizing their individualities in modern Britain.

The voices are stark and powerful, as they explore different themes that were largely unexplored by their predecessors.

We cover four books: by Ziauddin Sardar, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Kia Abdullah and Shelina Janmohamed.
Continue reading…

by Sunny Hundal
Editor

Is Farah Damji out of prison and terrorising people’s wallets again?

That is the question on everyone’s lips as the most notorious name in Asian media history hits the headlines again.

Damji was recently profiled in two places – the London Evening Standard and The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine. I’ve been trying to find out what she’s up to ever since.
Continue reading…

This is an extract from London based journalist Salil Tripathi’s new book: ‘Offence – The Hindu Case (Manifestos for the Twenty-first Century)‘

Near the end of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus tells the reader: “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning.”

For the Indian artist Maqbul Fida Husain, these words now carry a special meaning: opposition to him and his work has now travelled beyond India’s borders. In 2006, a group of Hindu activists attacked two of his paintings at an upscale art gallery, asserting that if Muslims could ban cartoons of Prophet Mohammed made by Danish artists, why couldn’t Hindus do the same with Husain’s art?
Continue reading…

Amit Rajp is a first-time author. He has a background in academic research and teaching in Birmingham. This is an excerpt from his book: ‘My Name Is Baljit But You Can Call Me Gary: The Alternative Guide To Indian Culture’

What is the fixation that mums, aunties, nans (nannijis), and grans (bibijis) have with plastic containers? It’s like Asian women have an addiction to plastic Tupperware!

The person that sets up the first ‘Tupperware Addiction Clinic’ for Asian women is going to make a lot of money – probably some Asian guy who will acquire a forged certificate from India.
Continue reading…

by Imran Ahmad
Author

I have always felt that Britain has remained remarkably tolerant despite the shock of the July 7th terrorist attacks in London, and the continuing provocation from some elements. But I wasn’t sure the same was the case for the United States.

For example there was a dreadful incident on this year’s New Year’s Day when nine Muslims – including three young children, and all US citizens – were removed from a domestic flight because two of them were overheard discussing where was the safest place to sit on an airplane.

A few weeks later, I was reclining on my sofa, watching President Obama’s inauguration speech in January – in which he mentioned a new era of ‘mutual respect’ between America and the Muslim world. I thought: ‘I can do that!’
Continue reading…

The annual Muslim Writers Award takes place this week in London. Nominations for its presitigious journalism prize include writers Ziauddin Sardar, Faisal al Yafai and Kia Abdullah.

Organisers have announced a partnership with publishers group Penguin Group.
Continue reading…

Writer and producer Farrukh Dhondy (far right) spoke at the launch for the new publishing company Revenge Ink last week in central London. The company is publishing two debut books by its founder, The Armageddon Mandala by Gopal Mukerjee, and Ugly Duckling by Amita Mukerjee.

“Revenge Ink is a small, idealistic publishing house for the post-modern age, when more people are writing than reading (about their lives on the Internet), when they are more eager to turn themselves into characters through their blogs and Facebook pages rather than turn to fiction for just such a specialised art,” said Ms Amita Mukerjee.
www.revengeink.com

London based Asia House is launching its ‘Festival of Asian Literature’ this month, hosting an array of writers including Ziauddin Sardar, Kenan Malik, Pankaj Mishra and Hardeep Singh Kohli.
Continue reading…

Novelist and poet Zahid Hussain is launching a society to help develop the talent of writers, hoping that one day “Muslim narratives” would become a part of British life. He is setting up Manchester Muslim Writers, open to Muslim and Non-Muslim writers, to foster creative and factual writing including poetry, the novel, screenplay, blogging and journalism.

The author of ‘The Curry Mile’ said: “I always felt there was little provision for talented individuals despite the demand. MMW is therefore being set up to provide pivotal social and technical support to nurture literary talent for the long-term.” MMW will meet monthly at Shakespeare House in South Manchester. Contact: zahid@r-squared.org.uk.

Leela Soma published her first book, Twice Born this year, after winning a local literary prize to finish the book. She tells AIM magazine how she got into writing and on the Scottish-Indian cultural scene.

What inspired you to get into writing your debut novel? Was the process difficult?

I had always written stories when I was young and some short poems for family events. I joined the Strathkelvin Writers Group in 2006 and won a few competitions there. In 2007 I won the Margaret Thomson Trophy for the first 10,000 words of this novel. The adjudicator Scottish Writer, Robin Lloyd -Jones’s advice was to make sure I completed the novel as it had a very good story line.Winning the Trophy gave me a boost and I worked hard to finish it.

The process was not easy as some bits flowed easily and others not quite as much. One character Aunty BB took over and grew bigger than I meant to but I had to restrict her scenes and work to the plot. The main thing was to keep the momentum going and have the stamina to finish writing the original 100,000 words then edit it down to 80,000.
Continue reading…

The Armageddon Mandala is the debut novel by writer Gopal Mukerjee, about a small-time private investigator who finds himself in the middle of a planetary holocaust.

The book is being published by upcoming company Revenge Ink, which describes itself as a “revolutionary, subversive publishing company that was launched to showcase cutting edge works”.
Continue reading…

The third annual Muslim Writers award will take place on the 27th of May at the Hilton on Park Lane, organisers announced this week. The event aims to recognise the very best of British Muslim literary talent.

Project director Irfan Akram said: “[Our] staggering growth reflects a growing desire for good quality literature amongst what’s expected to be the fastest growing sector of the book buying public over the coming months and years.”

Last week author Hema Macherla (pictured, left) from Hornchurch has won the accolade of ‘Reading Hero’ for her outstanding reading achievements following a nationwide hunt for heroes. The award was presented by the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown.

Hema spoke very little English when she arrived in England decades ago. Determined to fit in, she decided to learn to read. Last year she became a published author, in English, and her novel, Breeze from The River Manjeera, reached the top 26 out of 44,000 entries for the Richard & Judy Novel writing competition in 2005.

An anthology of literary pieces tackling the controversial topic of ‘the veil’ will be launched in March, in London. Behind the Hijab has contributions from both Muslim and Non-Muslim women in the UK.

Monsoon Press, which is partly behind the event, say the aim of the book is to enlighten those who have preconceived ideas about women who wear the hijab and perhaps encourage a greater level of understanding and mutual respect.
Continue reading…

An Indian sociologist walks into a housing project in Chicago with a questionnaire and walks straight into a lethal gang of drug leaders. Among his questions: “How does it feel to be black and poor?“.

Not only do they think he’s Mexican, and possibly a decoy for a gang attack, the suggested answers to the question are just as surreal: “very bad; somewhat bad; neither bad nor good; somewhat good; very good.” The gang members just laugh at him.

And so begins a journey by one man, sociologist Venkatesh Prasad, to live among one of Chicago’s most notorious drug gangs to find out more about their lives.
Continue reading…

by Navjot Singh
Travel writer

I first started writing about China when I went to visit the southern city of Guangzhou, which is the capital of Guangdong Province, for a one week holiday in autumn 2002. Initially it was only meant to be a short holiday and I had no firm intention to live in the country on a long term basis. Prior to this trip I had very little knowledge about the country, its people and the Chinese culture.

That one week’s vacation, plus a further opportunity to come and work in Hong Kong at a future date laid the firm foundations for me to turn all those situations related to culture shock which I came across, both in and outside the corporate environment, into a diary format.
Continue reading…

Motivational speaker and writer Arvind Devalia has published a new book called Personal Social Responsibility.

He says he is on a mission to help business people and their companies find “just the right answers before it is too late”.

“As we increasingly question the way we live our lives, business people need to ask themselves powerful questions to convert our good intentions into positive actions. It is all about not just doing things right, but doing the right thing.
Continue reading…

Former model and journalist Anjana Gosai has published a new beauty book aimed at South Asian women.

Currently beauty editor at Asian magazine, Ms Gosai’s book – ‘The Ultimate Guide To Beauty’ – is billed as “a one-of-a-kind dressing table guide containing everything a girl needs to look and feel her best”.
Continue reading…

Nasreen Akhtar, a 34 year writer was recently longlisted for an award for her self-published book, Catch a Fish from the Sea (Using the Internet). It is a memoir about trying to find a partner on the web and traces the remarkable journey of a hopeful soul seeking something that every human being craves: to love and be loved.

How did the idea for the book come about?

My post graduate study was called ‘Eenie, meenie, minie, mo…Catch a Fish from the Sea (Using the Internet)’. Then one day purely by chance, I looked at it from a non-academic angle and saw that is was amusing at the same time and thought that if it was a book, it would be quite entertaining.

During the years that followed, many people told me that I should write a book but I did not take this idea seriously. Then someone very important came into my life and told me that he wanted me to do something with my writing as he believed that I could create something fantastic.

By that time, even though I had set up my publishing company, I abandoned the idea due to severe writer’s block. But when he shared his thoughts with me, how could I not honour his request? And so Catch a Fish from the Sea (Using the Internet) as the world knows it now, came to be in its full glory.
Continue reading…