The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 23 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Olives

The Covenant of Water by physician and author Abraham Verghese tells the story of three generations of an Orthodox Saint Thomas Christian family in Kerala. Through suffering and loss, triumphs and victories, the importance of familial ties is examined and supported. In the Kerala of the 1940s, blood ties were sacred, but “family” also meant helpers who worked for you. Members of the three-generational family seem to be under a curse which causes its members to drown in water. The mystical power of water in our lives is explored with precision and sensitivity in the novel.

The title of this book suggests that it is based in Bengal but it really meanders deftly across time and space, more often than not in “mazy motion”.

A review of ‘Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras’ (India Penguin Classics, 2023) by Mirza Ghalib, translated by Maaz Bin Bilal

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 22 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Flag

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 21 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Tire

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 20 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: August

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 19 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: True

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 18 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Rubble

It is impossible to distinguish when, but I think My loss of faith coincided with your arrival

"Love" did not have me at 'hello' Nor does it cure the cries

Words have crashed onto your shores

Kissing strangers only feels good

Your gaze, a dagger, cuts through me

I needed to de-escalate.

This is the first time I let you in, but you’ve already made yourself at home. You are bumbling around in my kitchen, as though you have been making me tea for a lifetime.

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 17 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Together

'Rise': Sehri Tales selections, Day 16

I love reading about popular inventions which were originally created with a different purpose in mind. For instance, did you know that bubble wrap, that oh-so-ubiquitous packing material that doubles as a stress-relieving toy, was initially intended to be wallpaper? Imagine that! On the one hand, you have hours and hours of bubble-popping fun. On the other hand, probably a trypophobe’s nightmare, so maybe not. Either way, March Chavannes and Alfred Fielding, the co-inventors of the material, thought they had a dud on their hands until IBM started looking for better packing materials for their delicate new computers. The rest is history.

In Deena Mohamed’s Shubeik Lubeik (originally published in 2015 and translated in 2023 by Mohamed herself), wishes have not only drastically altered the fabric of daily life in Egypt, but the world at large.