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Asian Booklist Quarterly: Jan-Mar 2021

Discover new books by British-Asian authors

Update from Kia

Happy New Year, dear readers. I know that 2020 was a dumpster fire of a year, but things are looking up. We have a brilliant and broad range of books coming this quarter and it genuinely makes me optimistic about the state of publishing. 

There’s still a lot of work to be done (in 2020, British-Asian authors were under-represented on the bestsellers list by 55%), but there are reasons to be cheerful – not least, each of the books below. 

I’ve had a busy few months despite being stuck at home. Take It Back came out in the US in December (wargh!) and was recommended in USA Today, Publishers Weekly and Amazon Editors’ Picks among others. 

I wrote pieces for The Guardian and New York Magazine’s Strategist, recommended a bunch of books in the Big Issue, CrimeReads and Eastern Eye, and joined the Quick Book Reviews podcast to chat about Take It Back. I also really enjoyed this interview about craft for a fellow author’s website.

Right now, I’m gearing up for the paperback release of Truth Be Told in March and looking forward to (hopefully!) seeing some of you at live events before too long.

New books by British-Asian authors


January 7

Could you and your friends change the world? This book will inspire you with 15 true stories of groups of amazing humans who've changed the world. Discover the astonishing things humans can achieve: from the campaign for women's votes, to the efforts to heal the ozone layer. Or travel back to the start of democracy in Ancient Greece, and into […]


 

Whether you’re a new graduate, a working mum, returning to work after a career break or simply seeking a job change, The Skills explains: Preparation, Planning, Starting Out – how to learn from those around you and navigate your first years on the career ladder Speaking Up, Standing Up, Keeping Sharp – how to make the best first impressions, tips for public speaking and […]


 

From the award-winning author of The Boy at the Back of the Class comes a middle grade novel about the power of hope to sustain even when tragedy strikes. Ten-year-old Aniyah and her little brother Noah find themselves living in foster care after the sudden disappearance of their mum. With her life in disarray, Aniyah knows just one thing for sure: her […]


 

The world is waking up to the fact that society is arranged to benefit some more than others. There is much that needs changing. And you can be the one to do it. Anyone can make history, including a teenager launching a global campaign from their bedroom. And Amika will show you how, in this essential and inspirational step-by-step guide to being an […]


 

A slave woman in 1840s America dresses as a white, disabled man to escape to freedom, while a twenty-first-century black rights activist is ‘cancelled’ for denying her whiteness. A Victorian explorer disguises himself as a Muslim in Arabia’s forbidden holy city. A trans man claiming to have been assigned male at birth is exposed and murdered by bigots in 1993. […]


 

You can't choose who you fall in love with, they say. If only it were that simple. Growing up in Walsall in the 1990s, Huma straddled two worlds - school and teenage crushes in one, and the expectations and unwritten rules of her family's south Asian social circle in the other. Reconciling the two was sometimes a tightrope act, but […]


 

In his brilliantly illuminating new book Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in our imperial past. In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the […]


 

Racist pseudoscience may be on the rise, but science is no ally to racists. Instead science and history can be powerful allies against bigotry, granting us the clearest view of how people actually are, rather than how we judge them to be. How to Argue With a Racist dismantles outdated notions of race by illuminating what modern genetics can and […]


 

It is New Year's Eve, 1960. Hashim has left behind his homeland and his bride, Munira, to seek his fortune in England. His cousin and only friend, Rofikul, introduces Hashim to life in Manchester - including Rofikul's girlfriend, Helen. When Munira arrives, the group must learn what it is to be a family. Over the next twenty years, they make […]


 

Nazir Afzal knows a thing or two about justice. As a Chief Prosecutor, it was his job to make sure the most complex, violent and harrowing crimes made it to court, and that their perpetrators were convicted. From the Rochdale sex ring to the earliest prosecutions for honour killing and modern slavery, Nazir was at the forefront of the British […]


 

From the editor of The Good Immigrant. We have to believe in hope in these dark uncertain times. Hope brings us together. How do you find hope and even joy in a world that is racist, sexist and facing climate crisis? How do you prepare your children for it, but also fill them with all the boundlessness and eccentricity that they […]


 

Karachi. The capital of Pakistan is a sprawling mega-city of 20 million people. It is a place of political turbulence in which those who have power wield it with brutal and partisan force, a place in which it pays to have friends in the right places and to avoid making deadly enemies. It is a society where lavish wealth and […]


 

An auteur, together with his lead actors, is at a prestigious European festival to premiere his latest film. Alone one morning at a backstreet café, he strikes up a conversation with a local woman who takes him on a walk to uncover the city's secrets, historic and personal. As the walk unwinds, a story of love and tragedy emerges, and […]


 

When you’re left with nothing but your secrets, how do you start again? Uganda 1972 A devastating decree is issued: all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in ninety days. They must take only what they can carry, give up their money and never return. For Asha and Pran, married a matter of months, it means abandoning the family business […]


 

For readers of Circe and The Handmaid’s Tale, Kiran Millwood Hargrave's The Mercies is a story about how suspicion can twist its way through a community, and about a love that could prove as dangerous as it is powerful. Winter, 1617. The sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. A young woman, Maren, watches as the men of […]


 

You've heard of Little Badman, right? No? Oh. Well. . . Doesn't matter. You will do one day. He's gonna be big. Little Badman, aka Humza Khan, has saved the world TWICE. So it's lucky when Humza and his friends narrowly avoid being hit by rock from outer-space. What does get hit is a box of delicious samosas, which turn . . […]


 

Kamran Hadid feels invincible. He attends Hampton school, an elite all-boys boarding school in London, he comes from a wealthy family, and he has a place at Oxford next year. The world is at his feet. And then a night of revelry leads to a drunken encounter and he must ask himself a horrific question. With the help of assault […]


 

Be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men. Jia Khan has always lived like this. A successful lawyer, her London life is a long way from the grubby Northern streets she knew as a child, where her father headed up the Pakistani community and ran the local organised crime syndicate. Often his Jirga rule […]


 

Amit Patel is working as a trauma doctor when a rare condition causes him to lose his sight within thirty-six hours. Totally dependent on others and terrified of stepping outside with a white cane after he's assaulted, he hits rock bottom. He refuses to leave home on his own for three months. With the support of his wife Seema he […]


 

Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949 As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift.And so, when […]

Editor's choice

I absolutely adored How We Met by Huma Qureshi, a smart, funny, moving memoir about trying to find your place in the world. I laughed, I cried (several times) and ultimately finished the book feeling better about the world. It’s out on 28th Jan and pre-orders really help, so do order it now at your local independent bookshop or Amazon, Hive or Waterstones

Check out more 2021 books and tell your friends to sign up to Asian Booklist.

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Copyright © 2021 Kia Abdullah, All rights reserved.


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