Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan speaks to the writer Dur e Aziz Amna about her second novel, A Splintering (Duckworth Books, September 2025).
In a village in rural Pakistan, Tara dreams of escaping the dust, the stench, and the violent grip of her brother. An education and marriage to a middle-class accountant takes her to the capital, but she soon learns that respectability can become its own kind of cage. Her hunger for freedom and social mobility only deepens, even as the shadows of her past loom large.
Set against a backdrop of political unrest and everyday precarity, A Splintering by Dur e Aziz Amna is a gripping story of womanhood, desire and the costs of ambition.
This episode is now available on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Episode notes:
A Splintering by Dur E Aziz Amna (Duckworth Books, September 2025)
American Fever by Dur E Aziz Amna (Sceptre / Arcade, August 2022)
‘A Splintering’ - Dur e Aziz Amna (Substack, Nov 2024)
‘A cold heart’ by Dur E Aziz Amna - Shortlisted in the Himal Short Story Competition 2019
‘The Joy of Influence’ - Dur e Aziz Amna (Lithub, August 2022)
‘Inheritance’ - Dur e Aziz Amna (Wasafiri, August 2022)
‘The Many Homes of My Mother’ - Dur e Aziz Amna (Al Jazeera, September 2021)
‘Your Tongue Is Still Yours: Reflections On Language’ - Dur e Aziz Amna (Vintage Digital / Financial Times, November 2019)
‘House on Mayo Road’ - Dur e Aziz Amna (Longreads, November 2018)
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