“Khair writes brilliantly… Unmissable,” – The Times (UK);
“Irreverent, intelligent, and explosive,” – The Independent (UK);
“For a book so concise and witty, it is also surprisingly textured,”– The New Republic (USA);
“The picture that emerges may sear your soul much like your all-time favourite film,” – India Today;
“Ingenious and mischievous,” – The New Yorker.
“Intelligent and argumentative,” – London Review of Books.
Newest Books
Tabish Khair is a poet, novelist and critic from India. His major books include The Thing About Thugs, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position, and The Bus Stopped. He resides in a village outside Aarhus, Denmark where he teaches English literature at Aarhus University.
Novel forthcoming in 2026: DROWN ALL THE REFUGEES
‘Do you think pity absolves you? No, pity is something to be offered to a dog lamed by a car, a bird with broken wings, a worm cleft in half. It is better to kill a human being than to pity him.’ At a literary event, when the narrator screams, ‘Drown all the refugees,’ he means every word. After all, he has had close encounters with displaced people—his boyfriend Abdul is Palestinian; and his childhood best friend Pedro crossed India’s [...]
Literature Against Fundamentalism
Published in USA, UK and South Asia in 2024! The Literary Agenda Presents a new and provocative interpretation of how literature is a distinctive, agnostic mode of thinking about the world Engages carefully but without jargon in debates about religion and fundamentalism Concludes with a powerful 'call to literature' to address the crisis of the humanities Acclaimed novelist and academic Tabish Khair argues that literature as a distinct mode of thinking can counteract fundamentalism. Literature is a mode of thinking, [...]
Namaste Trump and Other Stories
A collection of other stories from shining India—those not often told. My first collection of stories is out in USA: https://www.interlinkbooks.com/product/namaste-trump-and-other-stories/ ... and has received a couple of early reviews: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781623717483 https://www.shelf-awareness.com/sar-issue.html?issue=1184#m22035 “[A] magnificent collection … Indian poet, essayist, and author Tabish Khair nimbly interrogates relationships both enabled and sundered by religious and socioeconomic divides in Namaste Trump & Other Stories … Khair proves to be an elegant, diligent conduit for all of his characters, as he records incidents of [...]
To H.C. Andersen
Outside the walls you crashed with Danish words,
I hold a match between finger and thumb;
Its burning opens no door, no passage.
I can almost make sense in your language:
I’m no bewitched mermaid; I have my tongue,
And poems flutter in its cage like birds.
Outside the walls you crashed with Danish words,
I hold a match between finger and thumb;
Its burning opens no door, no passage.
I can almost make sense in your language:
I’m no bewitched mermaid; I have my tongue,
And poems flutter in its cage like birds.