The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

These books, full of horror, humour, grisly monsters, and misfit kids, are the perfect remedy to fill the gap in your time until the show returns with more episodes. 

“The Khans are pretty generous. This year, they have distributed over 1000 pieces of clothes, all new.”

Peach seas murmur with the colours of the setting sun. There are no peach trees here — only

She was about to throw me along with her old clothes. Only at the last minute, she grabbed me by my nape, and pushed me inside the washing machine.

Indian-born British-American author Salman Rushdie has been named Companion of Honour, an exclusive club of 65 members honoured for their services to the arts, science, medicine, and government. Rushdie is leading the list for his longstanding services to literature.  

“My pain was so severe that I ran a fever of 104 degrees, and as I shook and trembled uncontrollably, the doctors finally performed an emergency C-section”, reveals Anushay Hossain, author of The Pain Gap (Simon and Schuster, 2021), in the introduction of her book.

On May 25, Netflix shared a teaser for their upcoming feel-good romance, Love & Gelato, and as an ardent reader of young-adult romance, I could not keep calm.

The second volume of Rehman Sobhan’s memoirs, Untranquil Recollections: Political Economy of Nation Building in Post-Liberation Bangladesh (University Press Limited, 2022) deals primarily with the years of 1972 to 1975,

The wide alleys and cobbled streets in the sultry air of the Mumbai city did not present a scenic panorama with foliage and greenery.

Come June 25

“Akalir Station er Jibon” (“Akali’s life at the Station”) depicts the struggling life of a working- class woman called Akali, who earns her livelihood by prostitution at Kamalapur Rail Station.

A memorial meeting of veteran writer, popular columnist and journalist, Abdul Gaffar Choudhury, author of the song, ‘Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano’ was arranged in the main auditorium of Bishwa Shahitya Kendro on May 31

As a long-time fan of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians book series by Rick Riordan, there could be no better news than Disney+ announcing that they will be rebooting the fan-favourite series with a new, talented cast. As expected, everyone was hyped about the reboot and fans started coming out of the woodwork with their years of Greek mythology knowledge. But then, all hell broke loose in the fandom when Riordan announced that 12-year-old Leah Sava Jeffries would be joining the cast as the character of Annabeth Chase, the daughter of Goddess Athena.

I had to come to this dense forest yesterday. I have no clue why we had to fall back. This is the beauty of military life-- the order comes and you have to do it. You can never ask, “Why do I have to do it?”

Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) has been customarily characterized as a rebel poet, particularly, if not exclusively, because of his 1922 poem called “Bidrohi” (the Rebel)—a poem that fiercely stages his political, linguistic, even metrical rebellion all at once.

Indian writer Geetanjali Shree became the first author from the country to win the International Booker Prize for her Hindi novel set in the aftermath of the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent.

Through eight short stories, Rumana Chowdhury’s Dusk in the Frog Pond and Other Stories (‎Inanna Publications, Toronto, 2021) brings to

Empire of Pain is a wondrous achievement of investigative journalism.

Their voices were muffled; everything the women said became ventriloquism. Mukhoty lets us hear those voices.

"I selected excerpts from eight famous works, books like Begum Rokeya’s 'Motichur' and 'Ekattorer Diary' by Sufia Kamal, and expanded on their implied or intended meaning as best as I could."