Celebrating South Asian Women Writers in March

A note from the editor on celebrating South Asian Women Writers in March

At Kitaab, it has been a constant endeavor to celebrate South Asian Writing. To take it forward, we have decided to feature women writers from South Asia all through the month of March on our website.

For this, we reached out to close to 350+ women writers across South Asia requesting an interview. We are still in the process of reaching out to others and yet we feel, we have barely managed to scratch the surface. There are many writers out there who are not yet featured on Kitaab and we definitely aim to feature them in the future. This March is just the beginning.

Interacting with these writers has been an extraordinary experience. So much to learn, to know, and of course to unlearn. Each of them has their own unique journey with its equally unique set of challenges. Yet what binds them all together is their love for stories and writing.

The challenges faced by women are many. It does not change for women writers as well. But they continue to soar higher and higher with their writings. To get you started, some of the books by women writers we recommend are:

One other common thing I found among all these women, was the need to apologize, or should I say ‘over-apologize’. The answers are lengthy – sorry. I did not respond immediately- sorry. Do I qualify? – sorry. The reasons were many, but the common word was sorry. From my experience of interacting with writers across the globe, I can say that women tend to apologize a lot. Most of the time, for some of the tiniest reasons. (I am also guilty of doing so!) I think it also stems from the lesson we are taught in childhood- to not be too much in anything. To not occupy much space, to not cause trouble, to not laugh loudly, to not talk loudly and/or honestly (read: hurtfully!).

To all the lovely women out there I just want to say one thing, more as a #NotetoSelf:

Tomorrow onwards, for the whole of March, we will be featuring interviews of various South Asian women writers. The goal is to celebrate diverse voices. I believe celebrating women for one day is not right, we should be celebrating them every day. Hence, we aim to continue this feature after March as well.

You can read all the features here: South Asian Women Writers.

Feel free to share their work, buy their work and celebrate their work!

Editor_Kitaab

Namrata is a published author who enjoys writing stories and think pieces on travel, relationships, and gender. She is a UEA alumnus and has studied travel writing at the University of Sydney.

She is also an independent editor and a book reviewer. Her writings can be found on various sites and magazines like the Asian Review of Books, Contemporary South Asia Journal of King’s College-London, Mad in Asia, The Friday Times, Daily Star, The Scroll, Feminism in India, The Brown Orient Journal, Inkspire Journal, Moonlight Journal, The Same, Chronic Pain India and Cafe Dissensus.

Her short stories have been a part of various anthologies . She has also published two short story collections of her own along with two solo titles as well. She is currently working on her debut novel. She loves travelling the length and breadth of the world and enjoys capturing the magic of life in her words. She is always in pursuit of a new country and a new story.

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