Summer break is on our doorstep, and as classes pause for a respite, we invite you to peruse our list of reading recommendations from our community members. There is something for everyone on this list, and we hope that it inspires your own reading pursuits! We would also love to hear some of your recommendations. Tag us on Instagram or Twitter with #HarvardSouthAsiaReads. Happy reading!
Tarun Khanna
Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School; Director, Lakshmi Mittal & Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
“I would recommend Uninhabitable Earth, which gives an unflinching look, combining analytics and emotion, at the already-present and still-to-come climate change-related disasters. It is super helpful in preparing us for our work on climate adaptation in the so-called Global South.
I am also currently reading Covenant of Water. It is a beautiful, evocative inter-generational saga of a family in Kerala, weaving together sociology, politics, and colonial history, with an underlying tone of genetics, all in mellifluous prose. I love the underlying deep scholarship told in the form of an engaging story.”
Jinah Kim
Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art in the Department of History of Art & Architecture
“I’ve been re-reading Nutmeg’s curse: Parables for a planet in crisis (2021) by Amitav Ghosh several times since the Water Stories exhibition last fall for which Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) was my companion. Ghosh is an amazing storyteller, and I hope to go back to a few of his earlier novels during this summer like the Hungry Tide (2004) and the Calcutta Chromosome (1995).
I am also excited about reading the Indian Cat: Stories, Paintings, Poetry, and Proverbs by B. N. Goswamy, a renowned Indian art historian who passed away in November 2023.
Another book on my list to reread for this summer is V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night on Sri Lankan civil war which came out last year.”
Vikram Patel
Paul Farmer Professor and Chair, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
“I would recommend The Prophet Song by Irish author Paul Lynch, which won the Booker Prize in 2023. Although this brilliantly written novel, with a very unique narrative style, is set in Ireland, it depicts a dystopian picture of the country as she slides into totalitarianism; I couldn’t help but think that the book could so easily be prophetic of countries in South Asia.”
Mashail Malik
Assistant Professor, Harvard University Department of Government
“I would recommend the following two books:
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid – A dark novel with a brooding protagonist that you will likely have little sympathy for, but one that leaves an impression. This was Hamid’s first novel and the only one I recommend by him.
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh – Ghosh wrote fiction about climate change before it was cool. He’s a tremendous writer, and he takes us to place where we’re unlikely to go on our own.”
Amra Fatima Khan
Visiting Artist Fellow Spring 2024
“Even years later, The Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif is still a must-read for its razor-sharp wit and dark satire. It hilariously dissects power, authoritarianism, military politics, and corruption—problems that, much like mango season, seem to come around every year in Pakistan.”
Rinan Shah
Mittal Institute India Fellow – Delhi Office
“I would recommend Chuden Kabimo’s Faatsung which was originally written in Nepali and has also been translated to English as Song of the Soil. I read the Nepali version and enjoyed being able to move through the book due to its smooth and simplistic usage of the language. The book portrays a fictional account of actual events bringing in incidents which had so long been forgotten or remained unacknowledged.”
Robert Rahman Raman
Mittal Institute India Fellow – Delhi Office
“A book that immediately comes to my mind is Junaid Shaikh’s Outcaste Bombay: City Making and the Politics of the Poor. The book is an interesting study of the symbiosis of caste and capitalism in the shifting landscape of twentieth-century Bombay.”