READING·EAST: The Middle East & South Asia

Breakpoint by Betsy Aoki exquisitely blends technology and the Asian American experience in an evocative mixture of sensual experiences, and mathematically infused linguistic patterns. Formally electrifying – from lyrics and triptychs to ghazals and Zeina Hashem Beck‘s own duets, in which English and Arabic echo and contradict each other – O explores the limits of language, notions of home and exile, and stirring visions of motherhood, memory, and faith. Smashing the hierarchies of god and humanity,…

Namwali Serpell‘s The Furrows: A Novel tells the story of Cassandra Williams, who was 12 when her 7-year-old brother, Wayne, is lost forever. Years later, Cassandra meets a man mysterious and familiar, who is also searching for someone and his own place in the world. His name is Wayne. And in Jacinda Townsend‘s Mother Country: A Novel, a toddler in Morocco is adopted by a visiting African American woman. But the girl already has a mother – an undocumented Mauritanian who was trafficked as a teen – and the two women face an inevitable reckoning.…

In Zain Khalid’s Brother Alive: A Novel, three boys intertwined by circumstance – Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef – are adopted as infants and share a bedroom atop a mosque in Staten Island, New York. Their adoptive father, Imam Salim, carries secrets, and when as adults they follow him on his return to Saudi Arabia, they must decide if they should change who they are to survive or defend their deeply held beliefs. And in Elizabeth Nunez’s Now Lila Knows,…

In Zain Khalid‘s Brother Alive: A Novel, three boys intertwined by circumstance – Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef – are adopted as infants and share a bedroom atop a mosque in Staten Island, New York. Their adoptive father, Imam Salim, carries secrets, and when as adults they follow him on his return to Saudi Arabia, they must decide if they should change who they are to survive or defend their deeply held beliefs. In Nightcrawling: A Novel, Leila Mottley welcomes readers into Kiara Johnson’s world in Oakland,…

When Cara Romero loses her job, she is in her mid-50s and forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. In Angie Cruz‘s How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water: A Novel, we follow Cara in her sessions with a job counselor, where she narrates her life story and we come to know a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight. The Guerreros have lived in Nothar Park, a predominantly Dominican enclave of New York City,…

Brown Girl Chromatography interrogates issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in a post-9/11 America while navigating Anuradha Bhowmik‘s millennial childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as a Bangladeshi-born American girl. City Without Altar by Jasminne Mendez is a play in verse that seeks to amplify the voices and experiences of victims, survivors and living ancestors of the 1937 Haitian Massacre that occurred along the northwest Dominican-Haitian border during the Trujillo era. Alexandra Lytton Regalado wrote Relinquenda entirely during lockdown as a meditation on cancer and the passing of her father,…

In Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance, Mustafa Akyol diagnoses “the crisis of Islam” in the modern world and offers a way forward. He argues that values often associated with Western Enlightenment – freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science – had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for political ends. This is a ReadingEast program.…

Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family is Rabia Chaudry‘s love letter (with recipes) to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, and pakoras – and an often hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family. It is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that works, but refuses to meet the expectations of others. In Illegally Yours: A Memoir, TV writer Rafael Agustin (Jane the Virgin) recalls how,…

The Curse on Spectacle Key by Chantel Acevedo is a sweetly spooky ghost story about a Cuban American boy who befriends a pair of spirits and tries to break the curse on his island home, only to discover a seemingly lost piece of his family’s history in the process. Christina Diaz Gonzalez‘s Invisible: A Graphic Novel follows five very different students who are forced together by their school to complete community service…and may just have more in common than they thought.…

In Marya Khan and the Incredible Henna Party by Saadia Faruqi, Marya’s eighth birthday is coming up in a week, and all she wants is an over-the-top party just like the ones Alexa, her rich neighbor, always throws. When Alexa parades into school with fancy invitations, Marya can’t help herself – she claims that she’s having the most epic henna party ever. Now she has to convince her family to make it happen. Enter Operation Help the Khans!…

In Etaf Rum‘s A Woman Is No Man: A Novel, Deya, Isra, and Fareeda – three Palestinian American women spanning as many generations – deal with their roles and the expectations of their community. Isra and her eldest daughter, Deya, prefer books and college to arranged marriages. Fareeda, the traditionalist matriarch, believes a woman’s future depends on marrying the right man. Susan Abulhawa‘s Against the Loveless World: A Novel, tells the story of Nahr, a young Palestinian woman fighting for a better life for her family as she travels as a refugee throughout the Middle East.…

Based on true-life events, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni‘s The Last Queen: A Novel of Courage and Resistance tells the story of Jindan, who transformed herself from a daughter of the keeper of the royal kennel to a powerful monarch. As the last reigning queen of India’s Sikh Empire, the once pampered wife became a warrior ruler to protect her people from the encroaching British Empire. Moderating is Meenakshi Narula Ahamed, author of A Matter of Trust: India U.S.…

Translated from the Arabic and introduced by Fady Joudah, You Can Be the Last Leaf: Selected Poems draws on two decades of work to present the transcendent and timely U.S. debut of Palestinian poet Maya Abu Al-Hayyat. Art. Garlic. Taxis. Sleepy soldiers at checkpoints. The smell of trash on a winter street, before “our wild rosebush, neglected / by the gate, / blooms.” Lovers who don’t return, the possibility that you yourself might not return. Making beds. Cleaning up vomit.…