📚 Southasia Review of Books - 11 March 2026
Hello reader,
Over the past few months, some of you have written in to ask when the Southasia Review of Books podcast might return. I’m happy to say: it’s coming back – and this time, in video form.
For those who may have joined us recently, SaRB began as a newsletter in April 2023, bringing together Himal’s reviews and literary essays alongside news, events and debates from the region’s literary worlds. In February 2024, we expanded with the SaRB podcast – longform conversations with celebrated authors and emerging literary voices whose books help us think more deeply about Southasia.
After a short break, we’re now relaunching the podcast with video recordings of the conversations. The idea remains the same: to create space for thoughtful discussions about new books and the wider worlds of politics, history and culture that shape Southasian writing today. But this time, we’re also hoping to take a more community-first approach. Alongside the conversations themselves, we’re looking at ways for you to be part of them too – whether by sharing questions for the authors or joining the discussion around the books we feature. So stay tuned, and I’ll share more about how you can take part in the coming weeks.
We’re excited to have you along for this new chapter of SaRB, and I hope the podcast continues to grow as a forum that brings the SaRB community together around an even wider range of Southasian literature.
Of course, building a shared space for conversations on Southasian books and ideas – the kind you’ll find only here on SaRB – depends on listeners and readers like you. If you value our independent, regional literary coverage, please consider becoming a paying Himal Patron today to support our work!
To contribute more, visit himalmag.com/support-himal.
And as always, I’d love to hear from you. Any ideas, feedback or thoughts on the SaRB podcast relaunch? If there’s a new Southasian book you think we should feature, or an author you’d like to see on the podcast, write to me at shwethas@himalmag.com.
📚 From Himal’s pages this fortnight
Unpacking the Savarna state of mind in a caste-ridden India
Ravikant Kisana’s ‘Meet the Savarnas’ dissects dominant-caste notions of merit, intimacy and power, showing how caste survives beneath India’s claims to modernity
By Shainal Verma
Himal Interviews: Tariq Ali on a life in writing and dissent
In a 2024 conversation on his memoir, the Pakistani-British writer and activist reflects on decades of political upheaval, from neoliberalism in the West to turmoil in Southasia, and offers sharp critiques of American imperialism and Israel’s crimes in Gaza
📚 Spotlight
Himal Fiction Fest 2026 is open for submissions!
We’re looking for original English-language translations of fiction, new or old, from any Southasian language. You can submit translations of short stories or excerpts from longer literary works. As always, we’re keen to spotlight work that travels across languages and contexts and brings a wide variety of writing to new audiences.
The deadline for submissions is 1 April. You can find full details and guidelines here.
📚 Celebrating Southasian literature
The longlist for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced this month. Now in its 31st year, the annual award – one of the most prominent prizes for women’s writing in English – recognises outstanding fiction from around the world.
This year’s 16-book longlist ranges widely in setting and scope, with nine titles from independent presses and seven debut novels. Two Southasian writers feature on the list: Megha Majumdar, for The Guardian and the Thief (Knopf, October 2025), and Sheena Kalayil, for The Others (Fly on the Wall Press, June 2025). The shortlist will be announced on 22 April, with the winner revealed in June.
The Women AutHer Awards, instituted in 2019 by JK Paper and The Times of India, celebrate the contributions of Indian women writers. The awards recognise books across several categories – fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature and debut – along with popular choice and unpublished manuscript prizes. The full 2026 longlist can be found here.
📚 This month in Southasian publishing
Pakistan’s montage photo studios
Pakistan’s vibrant tradition of montage photography is the subject of Jugaar: A Pakistani Guide to Aspirational Living (Fraglich Publishing and Folio Books, 2026). Drawing on material collected by Matthieu Paley, with text by Lukas Birk and Zarmeene Shah, the book offers a rare in-depth view of a popular photographic practice that has largely remained outside official histories. Produced in makeshift studios at festivals and fairs, these portraits use collaged backdrops of luxury homes, cars and film posters to transform clients into heroes, migrants or men of means – part of a grassroots visual language of aspiration and performance.
📖 From the Himal archives: The Indian photographer Satish Sharma describes a new visual language for the streets and studios of Southasia.
The last of Bengal’s female impersonators
Sandip Roy’s Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal: The Life and Times of a Female Impersonator (Seagull Books, March 2026) traces the life of Chapal Bhaduri, the legendary Bengali stage actor who mesmerised audiences as the last great female impersonator of the jatra tradition. When women began performing these roles themselves, Bhaduri found himself pushed out of the world he once ruled. Drawing on years of research and interviews, Roy revisits Kolkata’s golden age of theatre while reflecting on gender, performance and artistic identity.
📖 From the Himal archives: A review essay by Ranjana Dave on dance and performance across the boundaries of caste, gender and citizenship in India.
On the life and thought of Bharati
Bharathi: Time and Significance (Ratna Sagar, March 2026) brings T M C Raghunathan’s study of the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati to English readers in a translation by Prabha Sridevan. Focusing on the years between 1905 and 1911, Raghunathan closely examines Bharati’s political and literary life, situating his writings on freedom, social reform and spiritual liberation within the intellectual ferment of the early 20th century while holding long-standing narratives about the poet to careful scrutiny.
📖 From the Himal archives: Kavitha Muralidharan unpacks Meena Kandasamy’s feminist intervention on the ancient Tamil treatise Tirukkural.
A young Tibetan activist’s memoir
In Defying China: A Memoir (Dial Books, March 2026), Tsultrim Dolma, with Rebecca Wei Hsieh, recounts her coming of age as a young activist in the Tibetan independence movement. Raised in a remote village in eastern Tibet, Dolma joined protests at 16 against Chinese rule and was soon arrested and imprisoned at the notorious Gutsa Detention Center. The memoir traces her years under surveillance after her release and her eventual escape to the United States – a personal account of resistance, repression and the costs of political dissent.
📖 From the Himal archives: Amish Raj Mulmi explores how a generation of Tibetan writers are laying claim to the voice of exile and pushing back against the fetishisation of Tibet by the West.
Cities, rivers and rebellion in Bengal
In Gold Sand, Gold Water (Seagull Books, March 2026), Nalini Bera’s novel of life along the Subarnarekha River, translated from the Bengali by Sowvendra Shekhar Hansda, folklore and memory flow together with the everyday struggles of the Hatua people. Through the eyes of the young narrator Lolin, Bera evokes a landscape where forbidden love challenges caste boundaries and where older ways of life are slowly reshaped by industrial change.
Set in the underbelly of Calcutta, Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Dog Star (Seagull Books, March 2026), translated by Subha Prasad Sanyal, unfolds as a darkly comic fable of revolt. Where the city’s brutalised stray dogs rise against their human tormentors, Bhattacharya blends myth, satire and political critique into a dystopian allegory exploring the limits of empathy and the violence embedded in urban life.
India and the antibiotic crisis
In A World of Resistance: India and the Global Antibiotic Crisis (Harvard University Press, March 2026), Assa Doron and Alex Broom examine the accelerating threat of antibiotic resistance, with India at the centre of the global crisis. Drawing on years of fieldwork in hospitals, pharmacies and factory farms, the authors trace how overburdened healthcare systems, industrial agriculture and pharmaceutical waste have fuelled the rise of drug-resistant microbes. They argue that addressing the crisis will require not just tighter regulation but new forms of public health education and collective responsibility.
📖 From the Himal archives: Satya Sivaraman considers how the rampant, often-frivolous use of antibiotics over the past half-century has made us dramatically more vulnerable today.
Dalit writing from Punjab
Punjab has the highest proportion of Dalit communities of any Indian state, yet Punjabi Dalit writing has long struggled for wider recognition. Gangrene: Punjabi Dalit Short Stories (Penguin India, March 2026), translated and edited by Akshaya Kumar and Navdeep Singh, brings together powerful stories that chart the evolution of Dalit writing in Punjabi literature since the 1970s. Featuring works that confront caste hierarchies, rural exploitation and urban marginalisation, the anthology offers a searing literary window into caste and social life in Punjab.
Until next time, happy reading!
Shwetha Srikanthan
Associate Editor, Himal Southasian
💌 Are there any new books, authors or events you would like to see featured? I’d love to hear from you. Write to me at shwethas@himalmag.com.
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