South Asian American Archives - Page 3 of 17

Grown-Up Pose by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]

30 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

After last year’s The Matchmaker’s List, Sonya Lalli and Soneela Nankani return together for another cross-cultural dramedy about the challenges of balancing filial duties and modern relationships. Anu Desai was the perfect daughter for her immigrant Indian parents: she married the first (and only) boy she kissed,...

Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar [in Library Journal]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Banished from a large private city hospital, the doctor has run a remote village clinic for three years. His “pharmacist” is an untrained young woman, her husband on call for urgent labor. Despite the doctor’s acerbic demeanor, his care is unreproachable, even self-funding necessary...

The Marriage Game by Sara Desai [in Booklist]

27 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Soneela Nankani continues to grow her resume as the South Asian American rom-com narrator-of-choice, once again convincingly transforming truculently mismatched sparks into eternally burning flames. In Canadian Sara Desai’s debut, Nankani introduces sparring partners, Layla and Sam, suddenly forced to share a San Francisco office...

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh [in Library Journal]

26 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Arya Sagar, who has dozens of Indian/South Asian audio credits, enhances Amitav Ghosh’s ("Ibis" trilogy) already penetrating around-the-world mythic quest with his mellifluous narration, especially heightened with (mostly) agile adjustments for regional accents. Ghosh’s peripatetic hero, Deen Dutta, is an earnest Brooklyn-based rare books dealer,...

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author/artist Trung Le Nguyen’s autobiographical homage to the infinite power of storytelling. The opening page ingeniously distinguishes three interwoven narratives with three color palettes: red is the urgent now, about young Tiến...

Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Som [in Booklist]

07 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

Earlier this year, Bishakh Som debuted her dazzling graphic collection, Apsara Engine, the genesis of which is found here – inseparably entwined with Som’s own unique origin story. Som introduces herself in a narrative frame, bordering the memoir’s beginning and end: “I wanted to clue...

The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha [in Shelf Awareness]

05 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

As spare as it might initially seem, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay's wickedly entertaining novel, The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die, manages smoothly to illuminate gender inequity, cultural biases, socioeconomic disparity, and familial dysfunction through a three-generational ghost story. At 18, Somlata is wed to her 32-year-old husband, the "blissfully...

The Shape of Family by Shilpi Somaya Gowda [in Booklist]

23 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Once upon a time, the Olander quartet was just about perfect: white American Keith and Indian-born cosmopolitan Jaya fall madly in love in London and eventually settle in northern California to raise their two children. When eight-year-old Prem drowns in the family’s pool, 13-year-old Karina...

Recipe for Persuasion [The Rajes series, Book 2] by Sonali Dev [in Booklist]

10 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

They’re baaaaaaak, with Soneela Nankani repeating her aural support for welcome consistency. Bestselling Sonali Dev continues her Austen-inspired series starring the Indian royalty-descended, Northern California-established Raje family. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (2019) introduced the extended clan, matching neurosurgeon Trisha with chef DJ. In #2, Dev’s...

Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu [in Shelf Awareness]

28 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

What starts as seemingly light reading featuring New York family and friends headed to an Indian wedding morphs into a spectacularly entertaining examination of race, privilege, hybrid identity, family dysfunction, and maybe even a love story or five. Living in Mumbai and New York City,...

Five More to Go: Corinne Manning’s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader]

14 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean, Laotian American, Lists, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Ukrainian, Ukrainian American

We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning Corinne Manning’s author statement couldn’t be clearer: “I had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence ‘Oh, f*ck it. I’m writing lesbian fiction.’” That declaration became “Gay Tale,” one of 11 stories...

Diversifying the Audiobook Industry: Four Asian American Narrators Take the Mic [in Library Journal]

11 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

The publishing industry has been hard hit by COVID-19: festival and conference cancelations, library and bookstore shutterings, disappearing book tours, publishers’ office closings, production delays – especially with international printers – and, alas, probably more obstacles to come. But digital audiobooks can be the ideal,...

Quichotte by Salman Rushdie [in Booklist]

01 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

STARRED REVIEW Sixteen hours. Multiple layers of convoluted narrative. A vast cast in need of distinct distinguishing by age, gender, social standing, ethnicity, region, accent. Who you gonna call? Already a proven collaborator after The Golden-House (2017) and Shame (audio 2017), Adam returns as Rushdie’s voice-of-choice for his latest meandering...

Apsara Engine by Bishakh Som [in Booklist]

27 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW A woman goes out for her regular evening walk on the beach, contemplating her relationship with her husband, until she sees a mermaid washed up on the shore. And here text and graphics suddenly diverge: the words reveal a recent affair, while the frames...

A Burning by Megha Majumdar [in Booklist]

22 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW For the first time in her young life, Jivan has her own cellphone, which she bought with money earned by working as a shopgirl, having left high school after barely passing her tenth-form exams. After witnessing a gruesome train-station attack during her 15-minute walk...

The Royal Abduls by Ramiza Shamoun Koya [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

In her provocative, intense debut novel, The Royal Abduls, Ramiza Shamoun Koya introduces the extended members of a fractured family four years after the horrors of 9/11. Each is attempting to deal with ongoing anti-Muslim challenges, from microaggressions to outright civil rights abuses. Despite a shared...

A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian [in Booklist]

03 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

What began as a family affair – Jeed Saddy made her aural debut with her sister-in-law’s memoir, First Comes Marriage – has turned into a promising bookish career: in just a few months, Saddy’s already onto her third narrating credit. Her versatile characterizations highlight the intertwined...

The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar [in Booklist]

15 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Author Devi S. Laskar knows what it’s like to have a police gun pointed at her. In 2010, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation raided her home when her professor husband was wrongly accused of misusing university funds. They confiscated her laptop, on which was stored...

99 Nights in Logar by Jamil Jan Kochai [in Booklist]

14 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Afghan, Afghan American, Audio, Central Asian, Fiction, Pakistani American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

During summer 2005, when “the American war was sort of dozing,” 12-year-old Marwand, his brother, and mother arrived in Logar, Afghanistan to visit extended family. The six years since Marwand’s last visit from the U.S. isn’t enough for Budabash – more wolf than dog –...

Now Hear This: Priya Ayyar [in Booklist]

12 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

“Bringing these diverse books to life” is why Priya Ayyar does what she does. She narrates the books she didn’t have when she was growing up – books that resonate with her experiences as a California-born Indian American. “To think that someone who’s Muslim American...

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