Books I wish to read this summer:

1.) Egyptian journalist and activist, Mona Eltahawy’s ‘Headscarves and Hymens: Why The Middle East Needs A Sexual Revolution’.

I listened to Mona Eltahawy’s speech in JLF 2016. As Elif Shafak, a Turkish author says, it is rare to find a female activist in the Muslim world who can write and talk about sexuality, including her own sexual experiences, so unflinchingly.

2.) Second in my wishlist is The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, doyen of Iranian literature. I very much wanted to read his 3000 page saga of a Kurdish nomadic family, Kelidar. It is a ten-volume book that took fifteen years of preparing. Unfortunately I could not find this book in the book stores. But his another novel ‘The Colonel’ is availabale in the market. One more reason I want to read this book is that The Colonel was long-listed for Jan Michalski Prize 2013, along with my novel Zero Degree. And eventually, The Colonel won the prize.

3.) ‘Drawing Blood’ by Molly Crabapple. Because critics say that she could be the Charles Bukowski of our times.