Dur e Aziz Amna recommends
The River, The Town (2023)
Farah Ali
"The story of urbanization, the divide between urban and rural, the burning desire to trade the province for the metropolis, is at the heart of modern South Asia. Farah Ali takes this story and turns it into a tremendously personal tale of a single family. The stench of poverty that Farah's characters carry on themselves is its own animal, sharing space on every page. Farah has expertly crafted characters whose lives are overrun by economic struggle and climate change, sketching them in with electrifying details, unwavering compassion, and impressive clarity. There is none of the romanticization of struggle, no simplification of precarity, that so often makes its way into South Asian English-language fiction. The prose is stark and unadorned, but it has burned itself on my mind, and will do so with other lucky readers as well. This book is a marvelous achievement."
Mothers and Dogs (2023)
Fabio Morábito
"Morabito's stories are haunting in their loneliness, cutting in their absurdity, surprising in their hilarity. They conjure vivid urban landscapes populated by individuals weighed down by memories, landscapes that feel both familiar and oddly surreal. These stories will stay with me for a very long time."
