Showing results by author "Nikesh Shukla" in All Categories

How does it feel to be constantly regarded as a potential threat, strip-searched at every airport? Or be told that as an actress, the part you're most fitted to play is 'wife of a terrorist'? How does it feel to have words from your native language misused, misappropriated and used aggressively towards you? How does it feel to hear a child of colour say in a classroom that stories can only be about white people? How does it feel to go 'home' to India when your home is really London?

Mukesh has just moved from Kenya to the drizzly northern town of Keighley. He was expecting fame, fortune, the Rolling Stones and a nice girl, not poverty, loneliness and racism. Still, he might not have found Keith Richards, but he did find the girl. Neha is dying. Lung cancer, a genetic gift from her mother and an invocation to forge a better relationship with her brother and her widowed father before it's too late. The problem is, her brother is an unfunny comedian and her idiot father is a first-generation immigrant who moved to Keighley, of all places.

Written for audio format, this collection of six science fiction stories draw on themes of arrival, discovery and destination. Commissioned especially for Audible, and narrated by outstanding performers, these stories evoke the traditional storytelling of West African Jali as the unknown and distant are brought to life for audiences.

Nikesh Shukla explores themes of racism, feminism, parenting and our shifting ideas of home. This heartbreaking, compelling, intensely relatable memoir is a love letter to the author’s late mother - who passed away just before his eldest daughter was born - and to his two young daughters. In Brown Baby, Shukla examines, with humour and sharp, beautiful prose, how to raise the next generation with a sense of joy in an often bleak world.

Your Story Matters is an indispensable and inclusive guide not only to the how of writing, but also the why. Nikesh Shukla, author, writing mentor and best-selling editor of The Good Immigrant, knows better than most the power that every unique voice has to effect change. Everyone has a story inside that only they can tell; all you need is the friendly, informal and practical advice in this audiobook to help draw it out and let you know that your story is worthy of being told.

Sixteen modern fiction superstars shine a startling light on the romance and pain of the infamous literary pair Heathcliff and Cathy. Short stories to stir the heart and awaken vital conversation about love.

An urgent collection of essays by first- and second-generation immigrants, exploring what it's like to be othered in an increasingly divided America. From Trump's proposed border wall and travel ban to the marching of white supremacists in Charlottesville, America is consumed by tensions over immigration and the question of which bodies are welcome. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the best-selling UK edition, editors Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman hand the microphone to an incredible range of writers whose humanity and right to be in the US is under attack.

Love is not a singular concept. In this collection, seven award-winning authors explore seven concepts of love: from philautia (self-love) to agape (love for humanity) and from storge (a natural affection for family) to mania (a frenzied, obsessive love).

How do we raise our kids with joy and wonder in uncertain and – let’s face it – increasingly bleak times?This is the question explored in weekly podcast Brown Baby, hosted by writer (and dad of two) Nikesh Shukla. Inspired by his forthcoming memoir, Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family and Home, each week Nikesh invites fellow parents of brown babies - writers, musicians, chefs, comedians, actors and more - to talk about their parenting journeys and the highs and lows they’ve experienced along the way.A frank, funny and poignant look at parenting, Brown Baby will spark honest, ...

From the editor of The Good Immigrant, an adrenaline-fuelled, powerful YA novel about young people taking charge of their own destiny. A novel about standing up and being counted. Aspiring MC Taran and her twin brother, Hari, never wanted to move to Firestone House. But when the rent was doubled overnight and Dad's chemo meant he couldn't work, they had to make this tower block their home. It's good now, though; they feel part of something here. When they start noticing boarded-up flats and glossy fliers for expensive apartments, they don't think much of it - until Hari is caught up in a tragedy, and they are forced to go on the run.

Madhu is 17 going on 40 and starting her final year of sixth-form college. She has the weight of the world on her shoulders: her dad is putting pressure on her to do a law degree, which is the last thing on earth she wants to do. Her estranged sister is raising her nephew by herself in London, and contact is strictly forbidden. And Madhu needs money so she's pulling in every single shift she can at a pizza place. What she really wants, though, is to be a world-famous stand-up comedian.

Every week, or thereabouts, you'll get a short voicenote from Nikesh Shukla with a new writing tip, one that delves into the craft, business and egginess of writing. One week, it might be character, another it might be setting, or conflict, or dialogue, or the publishing industry. Like Nikesh's successful substack and his book on writing, Your Story Matters, this short, personable, warm podcast is meant to be like Nikesh's teaching: warm, enthusiastic, accessible and filled with references to superheroes and sitcoms. Have you ever sent a voice note on a messaging app, and about two minutes in,...