Arefa Tehsin, the shortlisted author for the Best Author Award by The Hindu, arrives in Sri Lanka to take part in a literary discussion and book signing event organised by The Asia Review and Good Reads Lanka and hosted by Minsara Book Shops & Publishers on 06^th January 2024. This event is a part of The Review’s Asian Literary Events hosted by Minsara Book Shops & Publishers every Saturday, featuring authors and their work; this is open to local and international writers. So far, Sri Lankan authors such as Mahinda Prasad Masimbula, Randika Kadawathaarachchi, Rashmika Mandawala, Narmada Rangodage, Mohan Dharmaratne, Ashani Ranasinghe, Priyantha Liyanage, Rangana Ariyadasa and their books have been featured this series of events, and Arefa Tehsin is the first foreign author in the line of foreign authors to come in 2024.

The Discussion with Arefa Tehsin will be moderated by Pramudith D Rupasinghe, an author of international fame and the winner of the Golden Aster Award for Global Literature. The event will be broadcasted as a Facebook Live. The event will commence at Minsara Gallerie Gampaha at 11 am and will end at 3 pm. 

Arefa Tehsin is the author of several fiction and non-fiction books, both for children and adults and contributes columns, features and travel articles to various publications like The Indian Express, The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Outlook, Money and TerraGreen. Her book The Chirmi Chasers was shortlisted for the Neev Book Award 2021. Amra and the Witch was shortlisted for FCCI’s Best Book of the Year Award 2019. She was shortlisted for the The Hindu Young World-Goodbooks Best Author Award 2017 for her book Wild in the Backyard. The picture book The Elephant Bird was read at over 3200 locations in India, from the slums to the Presidential Library on International Literacy Day, 2016 and translated into more than 35 languages. Do Tigers Drink Blood and 13 Other Mysteries of Nature is being translated into Chinese. A few schools in India and Sri Lanka have taken up her books as textbooks and supplementary readers. The fantasy book Iora and the Quest of Five was released in the U.S. and U.K. in 2022. Witch in the Peepul Tree, her first novel for adults, was published by Harper Collins in June 2023. Daughter of the renowned naturalist Dr. Raza H. Tehsin, Arefa has spent her childhood days treading jungles with her father, exploring caves and handling snakes. She was appointed as the Honorary Wildlife Warden of Udaipur district and has pursued nature conservation through her writings and columns.

Arefa Tehsin’s The Witch in the Peepul Tree hits The Asian Review‘s book of the month for December 2023—and 2nd book this year by Harper Collings India and represented by Kanishka Gupta of Writers’ Side.

The blurb: 

It is Makar Sankranti,1950, when sixteen-year-old Sanaz’s body is discovered in her father Dada Bhai’s house in Bohrawadi, Udaipur. A few of those in and around the house that day are the cruel zamindar Rao sahib of Singhgarh, the devout degenerate Hariharan, the young Bhil Nathu, visiting from a remote tribal village to inform Dada Bhai of a leopard kill, the attractive night soil worker Parijat, and the acerbic widow Sugra, who rolls a rosary and wishes for the jeevti dakkan – the living witch in the peepul tree – to be her secret ally. As the shadows grow long, it becomes clear that something sinister walks the halls of this grand old house. What unfolds is a genre-bending tale of suspense, intrigue and something so much darker.

The Asian Review, Minsara Group, and Good Reads Lanka are inviting readers to join this biggest international literary event scheduled in Gamapa for January 2024.

Subscribing to The Asian Review, you are able to stay updated about local and international literary events organised by The Asian Group of Literature and its local and international partners. 

By Mohan Dharmaratne