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Dear Reader,
It’s that time of year again when we’re inundated with lists of new books. Looking through the usual such lists, you’d think that only two or three books by writers of South Asian origin were published or worth paying attention to. And you would be sadly mistaken.
For January, we’ve rounded up almost twenty new and notable books published in the US, the UK, and India. And we know we’re still missing some cool ones. The good news is that more of our books are getting published at decent venues. The bad news is that the critics and media venue editors are still only paying attention if a book checks off their usual boxes about South Asian culture.
Let’s try and change that, shall we? Please share this list around? Maybe read and review some of these books? You don’t have to be a professional reviewer. Even reviews on your social media accounts will make a difference (don’t tag the author, please, if you’re doing a negative review because it’s not nice. Just hashtag the book title.)
You’ll notice that the format for this #DesiBooksReco has changed a bit. This is to streamline efforts so we can publish these monthly lists on time and include more books. We’ll be doing more such streamlining for other channels shortly as well.
As always, if you have a book coming out this year, let us know via our contact page. Please check out those brief guidelines as well. Thanks so much.
In some personal news, I have a crime/noir forward short story in this terrific new anthology, The Dark Waves of Winter. It’s about a Bombay to Goa road trip gone wrong. But, really, it was a chance for me to relive one of my favorite road trips in India along the Konkan coast. And to throw in some historical stories/folktales as well. Please take a look if that’s your thing?
Stay healthy, keep reading, and write well.
Warmly,
Jenny Bhatt