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Kamila Shamsie, Tahmima Anam and Itamar Vieira Junior talk to Pankaj Mishra

South to North Conversations: The Novel in the Age of Globalisation – A New Approach to Fiction

Hay Festival 2026, 

For lovers of the craft of fiction, this is an unmissable discussion on how the modern Western novel became a global form, with three great writers. Kamila Shamsie, Tahmima Anam and Itamar Vieira Junior talk to Pankaj Mishra about the challenges and opportunities of representing a complex world and global identities in fiction.

Tahmima Anam is a Bangladeshi-British novelist best known for her Bengal Trilogy, which explores Bangladesh’s history, identity and diaspora through contemporary literary fiction. Her latest novel is Uprising.Shamsie’s Home Fire won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and her novels have been shortlisted for multiple awards. Brazilian author Itamar Vieira Junior was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for Crooked Plow. Mishra’s latest book is The World After Gaza.

The session is hosted by Equator, a political and cultural magazine founded to tell stories traditionally neglected by Western narratives.

Kamila Shamsie, Tahmima Anam and Itamar Vieira Junior talk to Pankaj Mishra