Category: Fathima M
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “The Endearing Sisterhood in Yoko Ogawa’s Mina’s Matchbox” by Fathima M Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Mina’s Matchbox. Yōko Ogawa (author), Stephen B. Snyder (translator), Mina’s Matchbox, Pantheon Books, 2024. 288…
![[REVIEW] “The Endearing Sisterhood in Yoko Ogawa’s 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑎’𝑠 𝑀𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑏𝑜𝑥” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/819ycgclrml._sl1500_.jpg?w=940)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Saad Omar Khan, Drinking the Ocean, Buckrider Books, 2025. 250 pgs. “We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “A Love that Doesn’t Bind: Saad Omar Khan’s 𝐷𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑐𝑒𝑎𝑛” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/saad-omar-khan-drinking-the-ocean.jpg?w=971)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Thammika Songkaeo’s Stamford Hospital: Love and Loneliness in a Capitalist City” by Fathima M Click HERE to read Thammika Songkaeo’s “Twist of Fate” Thammika Songkaeo, Stamford Hospital, Penguin Random House…
![[REVIEW] “Thammika Songkaeo’s 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐻𝑜𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙: Love and Loneliness in a Capitalist City” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/thammika-songkaeo.jpg?w=977)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Niloufar-Lily Soltani, Zulaikha, Inanna Publications, 2023. 332 pgs. If there is a single word that can encapsulate the novel Zulaikha, it is beauty—a beauty that transcends the physical…
![[REVIEW] “Beauty and Strength in Niloufar-Lily Soltani’s 𝑍𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑘ℎ𝑎” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/in-niloufar-lily-soltanis-zulaikha.jpg?w=1000)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know, Ballantine Books, 2022. 352 pgs. Addressing trauma is never an easy undertaking—especially when it is the survivor herself who must confront it. Stephanie…
![[REVIEW] “The Invisible Pain of Abuse and its Diagnosis: Stephanie Foo’s 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑀𝑦 𝐵𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝐾𝑛𝑜𝑤” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/stephanie-foo-what-my-bones-know-1.jpg?w=987)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on A Woman Burnt. Imayam (author), GJV Prasad (translator), A Woman Burnt, Simon and Schuster India, 2023. 336 pgs. We step into a new world—otherwise inaccessible—every…
![[REVIEW] “A Tale of Love and Abuse: Imayam’s 𝐴 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑡” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/a-woman-burnt-1.jpg?w=952)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Annie Zaidi, Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation, Cambridge University Press, 2020. 166 pgs. Annie Zaidi’s memoir Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation…
![[REVIEW] “Lived Reality: Annie Zaidi’s Memoir 𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑, 𝐶𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐶𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑠” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/annie-zaidi-bread-cement-cactus-a-memoir-of-belonging-and-dislocation.jpg?w=971)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on The Woman in the Purple Skirt. Natsuko Imamura (author), Lucy North (translator), The Woman in the Purple Skirt, Penguin Random House, 2021. 224 pgs. The conventional…
![[REVIEW] “Thin Line Between Observing and Stalking: Natsuko Imamura’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑆𝑘𝑖𝑟𝑡” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/the-woman-in-the-purple-skirt.jpg?w=925)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Zhang Yimou (director), Raise the Red Lantern, 1991. 125 min. Raise the Red Lantern, directed by Zhang Yimou and based on Su Tong’s novella Wives and Concubines (1987), begins…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “The Absence of Female Desire and Patriarchal Oppression: Zhang Yimou’s 𝑅𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑑 𝐿𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/raise-the-red-lantern_cha_banner.jpeg?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire, Riverhead Books, 2017. 288 pgs. In almost every literary discussion I have had with fellow readers, whenever South Asian literature has been mentioned, Kamila Shamsie’s…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “The Politics of Love: Kamila Shamsie’s 𝐻𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑒” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/home-fire-a-novel-by-kamila-shamsie.jpg?w=993)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Dina Nayeri, Refuge, Riverhead Books, 2017. 336 pgs. Home does not always represent comfort or safety. Often, it becomes a place from where you need to flee. I am…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “In Perpetual Transit: Dina Nayeri’s 𝑅𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑔𝑒” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/refuge-cha-an-asian-literary-journal.png?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989. 288 pgs. The day I began writing this piece, a family of Chinese descent were killed in a shooting…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Amy Tan’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐽𝑜𝑦 𝐿𝑢𝑐𝑘 𝐶𝑙𝑢𝑏 and the Will to Live” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/le_joy_luck_club__c1.jpg?w=1024)
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{Written by Fathima M, this review is part of Issue 46 of Cha.} {Return to Cha Review of Books and Films.} David Chaffetz, Three Asian Divas: Women, Art and Culture in Shiraz, Delhi and Yangzhou, Abbreviated Press, 2019. 88 pgs. Culture and cultural…
![[REVIEW] “Subversive Truths: A Review of David Chaffetz’s Three Asian Divas” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/three-asian-divas_david-chaffetz_abbreviated-press.jpg?w=1024)
Cha 