South Asian Heritage Month runs from 18th July to 17th August every year. It seeks to raise the profile of British South Asian heritage and history in the UK through education, arts, culture and commemoration, with the goal of helping people to better understand the diversity of present-day Britain and improve social cohesion across the country. It had its inaugural year in 2020.
South Asian influences can be found everywhere in Britain, from our food and clothes to our music and even our words. The streets of our towns and cities are rich with the colours, sights and sounds of proud South Asian identity. Its culture permeates all parts of British life and adds to the diversity of the nation.
For information and details of events visit the South asian Heritage Website:
Slough Libraries has books available to borrow and downloadable E-Books by prominant authors of British Asian and Asian descent. We also have books in asian languages - Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu. Search our catalogue for availability: https://slough.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/WPAC/HOME
The final curtain is closing on the Second World War and in an abandoned Italian village, Hana, a nurse, tends to her sole remaining patient. Rescued from a burning plane, the anonymous Englishman is damaged beyond recognition and haunted by painful memories. The only clue Hana has to unlocking his past is the one thing he clung on to through the fire - a copy of 'The Histories' by Herodotus, covered with hand-written notes detailing a tragic love affair.
Sri Lankan born Michael Ondaatjeis the author of several novels, as well as a memoir, a non-fiction book on film, and several books of poetry. Among his many Canadian and international recognitions, his novel The English Patient won the Booker Prize and the 2018 Golden Man Booker Prize, and was adapted into a multi-award-winning Oscar movie; and Anil's Ghost won the Giller Prize, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Prix Médicis.
Mamoon is an eminent Indian-born writer who has made a career in England - but now, in his early 70s, his reputation is fading, sales have dried up, and his new wife has expensive taste. Harry, a young writer, is commissioned to write a biography to revitalise both Mamoon's career and his bank balance. Harry greatly admires Mamoon's work and wants to uncover the truth of the artist's life. Harry's publisher seeks a more naked truth, a salacious tale of sex and scandal that will generate headlines. Meanwhile Mamoon himself is mining a different vein of truth altogether. Harry and Mamoon find themselves in a battle of wills, but which of them will have the last word?
London born Hanif Kureishi grew up in Kent and studied philosophy at King's College London. His novels include The Buddha of Suburbia, which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, The Black Album, Intimacy and Something to Tell You. His screenplays include My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, Sammyand Rosie Get Laid and The Mother.He has also published several collections of short stories. He has been awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and been translated into thirty six languages.
Laura loves her daughter more than anything in the world. But nine-year-old Autumn is being bullied. Laura feels helpless. When Autumn fails to return home from school one day, Laura goes looking for her. She finds a crowd of older children taunting her little girl. In the heat of the moment, Laura makes a terrible choice. A choice that will have devastating consequences for her and her daughter...
Sanjida Kay is a writer and broadcaster. Bone by Bone is her first thriller. She lives in Bristol with her daughter and husband.
The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her win, but her generousity proves dangerous after the girl makes a single, unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she had imagined. As the marriage crumbles and Bela is forced to forge her own path, she unwittingly imprints her own child, Tara, with indelible lessons about freedom, heartbreak, and loyalty that will take a lifetime to unravel.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
You may know and love Tez from his stand-up comedy, his role as Eight in 'Man Like Mobeen', his Radio 4 series TEZ Talks, or panel shows such as 'Mock the Week' and 'The Last Leg'. Where you won't know him from is 1997 when he was 13. (But now you will - because that's what the book is about.) In this suitably dramatic rollercoaster ofa teenage memoir, Tez takes us back to where it all began: a working class, insular British Asian Muslim community in his hometown of post-Thatcher Blackburn.
In 'Finding My Voice,' Nadiya Hussain explores the many different roles assigned to her by her gender, culture, religion and society and how they have each shaped the woman she is today. Born to parents who emigrated from Bangladesh to Britain, Nadiya Hussain's first roles were those of daughter and sister. Considering her later identities as a devout Muslim entering an arranged marriage and becoming a wife and mother herself, Nadiya questions the barriers that many women, no matter who they are or where they live, have to cross in order to be accepted or heard. Importantly, she shows us how, at the core of it all, we are essentially tackling the same issues throughout our lives despite our cultural, social and religious differences.
Britain is a nation of shopkeepers, and the story of corner shops is the story of us. From Margaret Thatcher, the daughter of shopkeepers, to immigration from Pakistan, Kenya and Eastern Europe over the last seventy years, their influence has shaped the way we shop, the way we eat, and the way we understand ourselves. Babita Sharma was raised in a cornershop in Reading, and over the counter watched a world in flux, from the clientele to the products to the politics of shopkeeping. Along with the skills to perfectly mop a floor and stack a shelf, she gained a unique insight into a changing world - and an institution that, despite the creep of supermarkets, online shopping and delivery, has found a way to evolve and survive.
Babita Sharma was raised in a corner shop in Reading, and over the counter watched a changing world, from the clientele to the products to the politics of the day. Along with the skills to mop a floor perfectly and stack a shelf, she gained a unique insight into a shifting landscape