South Asia

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Saadat Hasan Manto, the most widely read and translated writer in the Urdu language, captured the devastation and absurdity of the...

How do power and beauty join forces to determine who is considered ugly? What role does that ugliness play in fomenting hatred? Moshtari Hilal, an Afghan-born author and artist who...

Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern...

Translated by Rijula Das A hilarious and absurdist take on the political landscape of West Bengal, India. Beggar’s Bedlam is a surreal novel that unleashes the chaos of the carnival...

Chronicle of a Pakistani Journalist in Exile An urgent and compelling graphic memoir about a Pakistani investigative journalist at odds with his fundamentalist family and the Pakistani military that attempts...

An anthology of weird, fantastic, supernatural, Dalit futurist, & magical realist fiction by writers from South Asia and the diaspora. This book features a mix of original English short stories...

A gay novel in which the rural landscapes of Bengal set the stage for a story that transcends the boundaries of tradition and love. Mallar, a shy and introspective sixteen-year-old,...

A landmark anthology, staking a new claim for Bengali literature in EnglishThe prose short story arrived in Bengal in the wake of British colonizers, and Bengali writers quickly made the...

Translated by Tejaswini Niranjana Winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, Jayant Kaikini is one of India's most...

A funny, poignant, and surprising novel about a goat's life in rural India by the greatest living Tamil author. A farmer in India is watching the sun set over his...

New Fiction by Afghan Women "My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not...

Translated by Sunandini Banerjee May 1992. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin is showing millions of communists the spectre of capitalism. Yugoslavia is disintegrating. United Germany is uncertain about their next move,...

Translated by Khalid Hasan and Muhammad Umar MemonStories encircling the marginalized, forgotten lives of Bombay, set against the backdrop of the India-Pakistan Partition, this is by far the most comprehensive...

“One who sings and chants these supremely confidential teachings to My devotees will attain supreme devotion for Me and will attain Me. There is no doubt in this matter.” —Sri...

Translated by Shamya DasguptaaIt’s the mid-to-late 1800s and the British have banished Wajid Ali Shah — the nawab of Awadh in Lucknow — to Calcutta. To the sound of the...

Translated by Zaman StanizaiAn Afghan Mother's Letter to her SonAn exquisite and inspiring memoir about one mother’s unimaginable choice in the face of oppression and abuse in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. How...

A JM Journey Translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY TARAN KHAN, author of Shadow City An intrepid traveller and true cosmopolitan, legendary Bengali writer Syed...

Translated by Arunava Sinha In Melbourne a one-time research student with interests in philosophy and psychology is diagnosed with her third episode of psychosis. As she is moved from her...

Translated by Haydn Trowell Yūka Ishii’s debut novel The Mud of a Century was a major literary success in Japan where it won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. Several days after...