The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles
Letters to a Writer of Colour by Deepa Anappara & Taymour Soomro
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Illustration of person opening a gift

The perfect last-minute gift

Audiobook credit bundles can be delivered instantly, given worldwide, and support local bookstores!

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Letters to a Writer of Colour

Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Length 8 hours 11 minutes
Language English
Narrators Deepa Anappara, Taymour Soomro & Full Cast

This audiobook uses AI narration.

Weโ€™re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Brought to you by Penguin.

Filled with empathy and wisdom, personal experiences and creative inspiration, this is a vital collection of essays on the power of literature and the craft of writing from an international array of writers of colour.


What if we reconsidered our assumptions about how fiction should be written? And can we then apply our discoveries to both what we read and how we read? This book explores these questions and encourages us into a more inclusive conversation about storytelling, featuring:

โ€ข Taymour Soomro on resisting rigid stories about who you are
โ€ข Madeleine Thien on how writing builds the room in which it can exist
โ€ข Amitava Kumar on why authenticity isn't a license we carry in our wallets
โ€ข Tahmima Anam on giving herself permission to be funny
โ€ข Ingrid Rojas Contreras on the bodily challenge of writing about trauma
โ€ข Zeyn Joukhadar on queering English and the power of refusing to translate ourselves
โ€ข Kiese Laymon on hearing that no one wants to read the story that you want to write
โ€ข Deepa Anappara on writing even through conditions that impede the creation of art

Plus essays from Tiphanie Yanique, Xiaolu Guo, Jamil Jan Kochai, Vida Cruz-Borja, Femi Kayode, Nadifa Mohamed in conversation with Leila Aboulela, Myriam Gurba, Mohammed Hanif and Sharlene Teo.

Read by Deepa Anaparra, Taymour Soomro, Madeleine Thien, Amitava Kumar, Tahmima Anam, Tiphanie Yanique, Marisol Ramirez, Cindy Kay, Zeyn Joukhadar, Jamil Jan Kochai, Nic Villasenor, Cary Hite, Simone McIntyre, Susan Nezami, Carolina Hoyos, Aaron Goodson, Mohammed Hanif and Mirai.

'Bracing and moving . . . No one interested in how we read and should read fiction can afford to miss this' Pankaj Mishra, author of Run And Hide

'Electric essays that speak to the experience of writing from the periphery . . . a guide, a comfort, and a call all at once' Laila Lalami, author of Conditional Citizens

'A whip-smart collection' Kamila Shamsie, author of Best of Friends


ยฉ2023 Edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Deepa Anappara grew up in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in cities including Mumbai and Delhi. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism. A partial of her debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award and the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and is currently studying for a PhD on a CHASE doctoral fellowship.

www.deepa-anappara.com

Taymour Soomro is a Pakistani writer. He studied law at Cambridge University and Stanford Law School. His short fiction has appeared in the New Yorker and the Southern Review, and he is the co-editor, with Deepa Anappara, of Letters to a Writer of Colour, an anthology on fiction, race and culture forthcoming in 2023. Soomro lives in London.

Deepa Anappara grew up in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in cities including Mumbai and Delhi. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism. A partial of her debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award and the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. Published in 2020, it has since been named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Washington Post, Time and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature. Deepa has an MA in Creative Writing and is currently studying for a PhD.

Taymour Soomro was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He read law at Cambridge University and Stanford Law School. He has worked as a corporate solicitor in New York and Milan, a law lecturer at a university in Karachi, an agricultural estate manager in rural Pakistan and a publicist for a luxury fashion brand in London. Soomro has an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. He has written extensively for the Pakistani news media. His short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Southern Review and Ninth Letter. His debut novel, Other Names for Love, will be published by Harvill Secker in 2022.

Taymour Soomro is a Pakistani writer. He studied law at Cambridge University and Stanford Law School. His short fiction has appeared in the New Yorker and the Southern Review, and he is the co-editor, with Deepa Anappara, of Letters to a Writer of Colour, an anthology on fiction, race and culture forthcoming in 2023. Soomro lives in London.

Audiobook details

ISBN:
9781529916133

Length:
8 hours 11 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Random House

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Illustration of person opening a gift

The perfect last-minute gift

Audiobook credit bundles can be delivered instantly, given worldwide, and support local bookstores!

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Reviews

Letters to a Writer of Colour is full of wisdom, nuance and elegance. It stretches discourses around "colour" and invites us to think more deeply and broadly about these questions. It is essential reading in a world full of soundbites and furious noise A whip-smart collection of essays. I read parts of it with the joy of recognition and other parts with the astonishment of revelation Electric essays that speak to the experience of writing from the periphery . . . a guide, a comfort, and a call all at once The problem of the color line, as WEB Du Bois called it, has existed in literature and literary criticism as much as social and geopolitical realms, and systematic neglect by publishers, critics and readers has only exacerbated it. Excavating long-buried experiences of rejection, incomprehension and misunderstanding, Letters to a Writer of Colour defines the problem with precision and passion, and also outlines ways to transcend it. No one interested in how we read and should read fiction can afford to miss this bracing and moving anthology I knew I would love this book as soon as I laid eyes on the title and the list of contributors, and it didn't disappoint - far from it. These essays provide so much wisdom and warmth, giving us a sense of restoration, of community. They take a refreshingly holistic view of the craft and balance real technical insight with deeply gentle humanity. I cannot wait for my students to read this book! Expand reviews
The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles