I've been trying to review my reading habits a little bit and as it turns out, I don't read nearly enough South Asian Women Writers. I've been working on reading more women writers in general and that is coming along reasonably nicely, I think. But, South Asian Women Writers? Not so much.
Let me re-phrase that - I read dismally few South Asian Women Writers. And nearly all the ones I've read have been for school (meaning, I haven't sought them out).
Shamefacedly, I admit that I hadn't really thought about this (lack of SA women writers in my own reading) until I came across the Australian Women Writers Challenge.
(Ahem. Yes. This is another Galactic Suburbia Podcast inspired post.)
After some interwebs scouting later, I decided to ask my namesake, the kick-ass and knowledgeable, Aishwarya S. if she knew of an Indian / South Asian equivalent.
And since she didn't, we decided to come up with one ourselves.
In her words:
So we spent some time trying to work out how many books people read per year on average, arguing over whether we wanted to focus on Indian writers or not, and finally came up with what seem like a comfortingly liberal set of guidelines. An introductory post is here; there’s a twitter account here, there’ll probably be a facebook page soon (Aishwarya has done most of the work so far). Join in, read things.
The facebook page is now up at: www.facebook.com/SouthAsianWomenWritersChallenge
So go on, I know you're reading all year anyway. Add a few South Asian Women Writers to your list.
You can choose from different numbers of books you want to read (as long as you review atleast half of them - unless you're only reading one book by a SA woman writer, in that case you have to review that one book).
Sign up for the challenge with me. And help me spread the word too, yeah?
Let me re-phrase that - I read dismally few South Asian Women Writers. And nearly all the ones I've read have been for school (meaning, I haven't sought them out).
Shamefacedly, I admit that I hadn't really thought about this (lack of SA women writers in my own reading) until I came across the Australian Women Writers Challenge.
(Ahem. Yes. This is another Galactic Suburbia Podcast inspired post.)
After some interwebs scouting later, I decided to ask my namesake, the kick-ass and knowledgeable, Aishwarya S. if she knew of an Indian / South Asian equivalent.
And since she didn't, we decided to come up with one ourselves.
In her words:
So we spent some time trying to work out how many books people read per year on average, arguing over whether we wanted to focus on Indian writers or not, and finally came up with what seem like a comfortingly liberal set of guidelines. An introductory post is here; there’s a twitter account here, there’ll probably be a facebook page soon (Aishwarya has done most of the work so far). Join in, read things.
The facebook page is now up at: www.facebook.com/SouthAsianWomenWritersChallenge
So go on, I know you're reading all year anyway. Add a few South Asian Women Writers to your list.
You can choose from different numbers of books you want to read (as long as you review atleast half of them - unless you're only reading one book by a SA woman writer, in that case you have to review that one book).
Sign up for the challenge with me. And help me spread the word too, yeah?
1 comment:
I've read Markandaya (nectar in a sieve)...does that count? And Roy's essays...I think I read more Asian American writers than South Asian writers in general. Hmmm. Since Asian American is no longer my field (it used to be), I don't have enough time, but I promise to review at least the ones I manage to read. ;)
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