A couple of years ago I signed up for the Africa Reading Challenge. It was fun, introduced me to a load of new books and led me to lots of great blogs. So, I now present the South Asia Reading challenge…
Participants sign up to read six books during 2011 written by authors from South Asia, or who deal with themes about the region, that are set in the region or whatever. The more creative the connection the better. And feel free to read more, if you like. Signing up is simple:
- write up your list of books (you can change if as you go along, if you like – let’s keep things relaxed) on your blog, then let me know via the comment form below, with a link to your list and your name. I’ll list you on this page
- then each time you read a book, post a review and let me know, again via the comments section (simply stating your name, book reviewed, author – and subject country, if that doesn’t become too complicated), and we’ll build up a list of reviews
If you need some ideas, then the recent Pakistan issue of Granta is a good starting point. Here’s a list for Afghanistan and India. Definitions of South Asia vary, but I’m quite happy to include the states of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, which also includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. So knock yourselves out…
Participants and Reading Lists
Links to Reviews
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini / Afghanistan (Hareem Sumbul Bhatti)
- Granta Pakistan by various/ Pakistan (Bina Shah)
- Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer/ Kashmir (Rob)
- The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni/ India (Agnija-B)
- The Bloodstone Papers by Glen Duncan/India (Agnija-B)
- The Sister of my Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Agnija-B)
- Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer/ Kashmir (Toaf)
- Silverfish by Saikat Majumdar/ India (Toaf)
- Migrants and Militants: “Fun” and Urban Violence in Pakistan by Oskar Verkaaik/ Pakistan (Jakob)
- To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultous Years in Pakistan by Nicholas Schmidle/ Pakistan (Jakob)
- So much Aid so little development: Stories from Pakistan by Samia Waheed Altaf/ Pakistan (Jakob)
What a captivating idea! I will hone my list of 6 and be back in touch. Happy 2011 & good reading, Caroline
Looking forward to seeing your list
http://sumbul.blogspot.com/2011/01/running-kites-as-we-unscramble-history.html
Name: Hareem Sumbul Bhatti
Book Reviewed: The Kite Runner
Author : Khalid Hosseini
Subject Country: Afghanistan
Count me in, Rob. I’ll start with Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night since I’ll be in Kashmir in June. I’ll get a list together and blog it this week.
Great stuff Toaf. Looking forward to seeing it. Just about to finish Curfewed Night myself
Challenge accepted: http://bit.ly/gRWGhK
I think this is a great idea! Although, I do wonder if I can actually complete the challenge. I have been sitting on the fence over this ever since I saw the challenge. I think I will bite. At least it will give me an impetus to re-establish my reading/writing habit even if I don’t actually complete it. I have already reviewed one book that would fall into this category at http://agnija-b.blogspot.com/2011/01/palace-of-illusions-review.html. Technically, I read the book in 2010, but wrote the review in January. Does that count?
Here is the rest of my list so far:
1. Sister of my heart, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
2. White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
3. The Bloodstone Papers, Glen Duncan
4. ?
5. ?
I will edit the list as I get to that point.
Welcome aboard. And I think we can allow your review
List finally packed and ready to go: http://urbandjinn.blogspot.com/2011/01/south-asia-reading-challenge.html
1. The Immigrant, Manju Kapur
2. Empires of the Indus, Alice Albinia
3. Maharanis, Lucy Moore
4. The Wandering Falcon, Jamil Ahmad
5. The Cloud Messanger, Aamer Hussain
6. Ghalib at Dusk, and other stories, Nighat M. Gandhi
I just finished my second book for this challenge: Glen Duncan’s The Bloodstone Papers. The review is here: http://agnija-b.blogspot.com/2011/01/bloodstone-papers-review.html
for german-readers, I have just done a review for books that came on the market recently on pakistan (incl. 5 books)
will look at
1) jhoota satch, yashpal
2) fun and urban violence in karachi, verkaaink
3) making lahore modern, glover
4) recurrent patterns in punjabi poetry, n. syed
5) collected poems of shah hussain, ed. muzaffar ghaffar
6) natyashastra
among others during ’11.
Great, stuff. Welcome aboard Jakob
finally, the first is up: Migrants and Militants – Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan by Oskar Verkaaik http://rugpundits.com/?p=1401
and here follows the second: http://rugpundits.com/?p=1410: To live or to perish forever – two tumultous years in Pakistan by N Schmidle
Two great reviews and two books that I should read, by the looks of it
Here’s the third review of the series: The Sister of My Heart: A Review.
Aargh! Sorry. Copy pasted the wrong link. Please ignore the link above. Here is the one I meant to post:
http://agnija-b.blogspot.com/2011/04/sister-of-my-heart-review.html.
Great review. Just put it up on list a bit late as I’ve been on the road a bit of late and have rather neglected this page
The ‘Expert’ dilemma in Foreign Aid – review of Samia Waheed Altaf’s new book on Aid to Pakistan. It’s a really funny book, although the fact that it is funny is quite sad: http://t.co/VzM1PNaF
This sounds a fascinating read. nice one, thanks
i guess 2011 is over and 11 books a good number. the last one I read in the old year, I reviewed for Dawn here after getting into reviewing a bit – on water and how this holds as a very murky story line for future wars in South Asia: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/15/cover-story-searching-for-conflict-in-water.html