Favourite Books -2021
I read a lot of books, around 75 I think. I kept a tally for a while but lost track along the way. I tend to forget library books [...]
The comfort of story
I have always found it hard to tell ‘a single story.’ When Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche warned of the dangers of a single story, I understood her caution a deeper level. [...]
The semantics of slaughter
We know that language matters. As people of colour, especially, we know language matters. Pauline Hanson’s debut speech in Parliament in 1996 sent a shiver up my spine. Words [...]
The Book Pile – 2018
Globally and personally 2018 was a difficult year, so I built a wall of books and retreated. Here are some of the books I read, and some that I abandoned. [...]
Strands of Jupiter
Our resident astrologer was a strict vegetarian Hindu who wore his caste marks on his forehead. With stained fingers he spread out charts and filled the room with the [...]
A Ministry, a Garden, a God
I read a lot of books. For research mainly, or so I tell others and myself but also for pleasure, for comfort and to know myself better. I read fabulous [...]
Books I loved in 2017
I started the year as I always do, with a selection of books by Australian writers, this time because I was fortunate enough to be on a writing panel [...]
The Persian Book Club
One of the unexpected joys of publishing a book is that I am sometimes invited by book clubs to speak about my novel. This can be slightly nerve racking because [...]
Brown girls who shout
Whereas we write and speak as members of a small minority of marginal voices, our journalistic and academic critics belong to a wealthy system of interlocking informational and academic resources [...]
India Diary – Part One
A native knows the scene, right? Wrong. I was born in India and have been a fairly regular visitor for the last thirty years. Earlier this year, when my university [...]