Looking back on our first London Book Fair now the week-long hangover has finally lifted, it all went quite amazingly well. Our launch party at the Free Word Centre sold out; everyone was suitably impressed by performance & readings from Khairani Barokka & Mui Poopoksakul, we sold a pile of books, & the transfer tattoos were also a hit (sneaky advertising for the rest of the fair).
Read MoreTamil Women Poets Speak Out
In 2003, a group of men and women, setting themselves up as guardians of Tamil culture, objected publicly to the language of a new generation of women poets – particularly in the work of Malathi Maithri, Salma, Kutti Revathi and Sukirtharani – charging the women with obscenity and immodesty. The response of the Tamil literary world was markedly violent. A lot has changed since then – but a lot remains unchanged still.
Read MoreSoutheast Asian Fiction Hots Up
Southeast Asia here is no mere backdrop. It is fuel for the flame, the heat that rises and commingles with sweat and effects motion, the brand that has seared all of us who hail from it and/or have deep ties with it. It infuses our lives with particular absurdities, catastrophes and joys, tiny habits and affectations, variations on English and on our hundreds of other languages, ecstatic fantasies and terrors that can come from nowhere else.
Read MoreAn Exciting Time To Be A Publisher
Tilted Axis' focus on Asian languages – where authors' equal facility with short stories and often poetry as well as novels encourages hybrid forms; where linguistic experimentation is informed by daily lives shifting between languages – is a brilliant way of discovering the stylistic innovation and non-conforming narratives that most excite us.
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