South Asian Studies Book Club
The South Asia book club is an opportunity to discuss books, primarily fiction, about South Asia and / or the desi diaspora, prioritizing authors who are South Asian or of South Asian descent. We meet two or three times a semester. The book club is an informal opportunity to discuss novels of shared interest over tea/coffee.
All members within and beyond the SASI community and beyond are welcome. On ocassion, we have funding to offer free copies of books upon request. Please feel free to reach out to Aparna Parikh (aparna@psu.edu)
In fall 2026, we will discuss The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai and Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur. Date and time for both are TBD.
Initiated in 2024–25, we have thus far discussed the following books.
This is Where the Serpent Livesby Daniyal Mueenuddin
Daniyal Mueenuddin’s This Is Where the Serpent Lives paints a powerful portrait of contemporary feudal Pakistan and a farm on which the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters are linked through violence and love, resilience, and tragedy. In matters of both business and the heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle to choose between the paths that are moral and the paths that will allow them to survive the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their country.
Mother Mary Comes to Meby Arundhati Roy
A heart-wrenching, beautiful memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me follows the contours of Arundhati Roy’s life, mapping her extraordinary experiences with humor, gravity, and grace. From her upbringing in Kerala to her young adulthood in Delhi in the seventies to her meteoric rise on the global stage and her searing political writing, Roy details her unlikely path through tumultuous decades of Indian politics, her own creative pursuits in a variety of mediums, but, most of all, her fraught, impossibly intricate relationship with her mother, an icon in her own right, Mary Roy.
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodiesby Tsering Yangzom Lama
Newly orphaned and stranded in a Nepalese refugee camp after fleeing Chinese invaders, the Tibetan sisters must navigate an unknown world. A mysterious statue of the Nameless Saint, which vanished and reappears in times of needs, brings comfort, and decades later, becomes the catalyst of the sisters’ reclamation of their heritage. Lama… brings a personal perspective to the plight of refugees and immigrants as they try to assimilate while honoring their pasts.” ―Washington Post
A History of Burning
by Janika Oza
In 1898, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor for the British on the East African Railway. Far from home, Pirbhai commits a brutal act in the name of survival that will haunt him and his family for years to come.
Brotherless Night
by V. V. Ganeshananthan
The Many Lives of Syeda X
by Neha Dixit
The Spaces Between Usby Thrity Umrigar
For more information, please contact:
- aparna@psu.edu