Your Favorite indian/asian/south asian writer or book?
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hi everyone,

just curious about favorite authors and books by indian/south asian writers people have? I am looking to broaden my scope.  my limiting factor is that i don't like books that are too sad and i tend to gravitate more to female characters/authors.  i have read a lot of chitra divakaruni's books, Palace of Illusions was my favorite of her works.  I loved Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, and Rishi Reddy's Karma and other Stories. I also liked Monica Pradhan The Hindi-bindi club, it was a good read and had nice recipes!   I also started to read Salman Rushdie's Luka and the Fire of Life which is amazing so far but i was interrupted (hope to get back to it soon!).  Abraham Varghese's book Cutting for stone is also supposed to be good but i haven't read that either yet.  so join in and let us know who you like (or don't like and why).

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  • Two reasons for the doom and gloom, IMO. One, "literary" is often conflated with"depressing" (as though happy endings would disqualify the writing). Specifically wrt to Indian/South Asian fiction, I think there is an expectation that tales from the third world "ought" to be angsty and sad, and that postive stuff doesn't sell. Uma Krishnaswami said (in a blog comment on my site) that her funny, positive book goes against the grain in multi-cultural publishing, and that it hence might not get pushed very strongly. Her book is great btw--do check it out if you are looking for light-hearted kidlit! Here's a link to my blog review:: http://niranjana.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/uma-krishnaswami-giveaway/
  • Thanks Niranjana! I remember SAWNET - it is a great ressource!  Thanks for bringing it back to my attention!  I wonder why so many books by indian writers are so sad.  any thoughts? 
  • hi Farzana, I read and review a lot of South Asian writing, and it's hard for me to narrow it down, but some female authors I like include Shashi Deshpande, Farzana Doctor, Mridula Koshy, Uzma Aslam Khan. (Most of their books are pretty sad though ...)  There's a really good list (with links) of South Asian women writers at SAWNET: http://www.sawnet.org/books/authors.php Hope you find something you like!