Alka Joshi immediately became an bestselling author with her debut The Henna Artist, which became a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and has been translated into 30 languages. The Jaipur trilogy began with The Henna Artist and followed with The Secret Keeper of Jaipur and The Perfumist of Paris. Paul Blezard recommends The Secret Keeper of Jaipur as a "a fully immersive, take-you-to-another-place read".

Her fourth novel Six Days in Bombay is released on the 8th May. A sweeping novel of identity and self discover that transports readers from Prague, Florence, Paris and London. A LoveReading Star Book and Book of the Month, Six Days in Bombay is "a colourful, compassionate, and rewarding novel of loss, injustice, self-discovery and independence." Joshi joined us for a LoveReading Exclusive Author Event where she discussed this stunning read with our Editorial Expert Liz Robinson. You can head to the book page to watch the event and read Liz's Review. 

We're over the moon that Alka agreed to be our LoveReading Guest Editor for May. We invite our Guest Eds to share their thoughts on a bookish theme of their choice, an exciting opportunity to talk books and get some new recommendations. We've never got enough of those, right? Joshi's topic explores a theme that has supported her throughout her life and is one that resonates through her work in the themes of identity and self discovery.

Over to Alka...

Understanding the Other

When my family immigrated from India to the United States in 1967, I went from a comfortable sense of belonging in my birth country to a place where I became the curiosity, the oddity, the strangeling. Startled by the relentless requests to explain my identity—Where did I get my tan? Why did I let cows roam the streets? How dare I let poor people starve?—I retreated inside books, looking for an escape from the never-ending questions about my outsider status. What I found were stories of otherness from different cultures, social classes, and genders that helped me explain my own alienation, ultimately, to others when I became an author.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

In 1985, coal merchant Bill Furlong is aware of the Magdalen laundry at the convent on the hill in New Ross, Ireland. Everyone in town knows that’s where unwed mothers are abandoned by their families and put to work. But it’s not until he makes a coal delivery to the nunnery that Bill sees for himself how brutally the girls are treated. As the son of an unwed mother, Bill is keenly aware of how lucky he was to have been allowed to stay with his mother and the family who took her in. When he witnesses what could have been his mother’s fate, he’s forced to make a decision: does he look the other way, refusing to question the almighty power of the Catholic Church, as the townsfolk do, or does he become the “other,” the nail that sticks out and gets hammered down, taking his family of five girls down with him? Keegan’s prose is so powerful that I finished this novel in one sitting and immediately began again from page one.

My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Nigerian Korede has a younger sister and a problem. Beautiful, impulsive Ayoola keeps murdering her boyfriends. Plain, dutiful Korede cleverly cleans up after Ayoola, and the killings are labeled “self-defense.” Is Korede bitter about her complicity and Ayoola’s remorseless attitude? Of course! And never more so than when the man she’s in love with falls for Ayoola’s charms. Korede knows what will happen if Ayoola gets tired of him or he crosses her in any way. But Korede is the “other”—neglected, scorned, ignored. In order to belong and maintain her sense of family, will she continue to support a sociopath? Or will she stop her sister from killing another? Braithwaite’s narrative is unexpectedly comic, her writing spare, and the mounting tension delicious. 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

What’s it like to be a woman who has no desire to marry or have children and is perfectly happy working in a Japanese konbini, a convenience store? 36-year-old Keiko is getting a lot of pressure from family and friends to find a husband. But Keiko is socially awkward, not prone to small talk. She finds comfort in her routine work and the store’s corporate manual, which tells her when and how to smile at humans and what to say to them to appear normal: “As long as you wear the skin of what’s considered an ordinary person and follow the manual, you won’t be driven out of the village or treated as a burden.” Continually struggling to avoid “otherness,” Keiko reaches a crossroad: must society’s definition of happiness be the same as hers? You’ll be rooting for Keiko to say “no” to societal expectations, as I was.

Now You See Us by Balli Jaswal Singh

Poor immigrant workers—maids, nannies, cleaners—in the homes of the wealthy are often marginalized, underestimated, and “othered,” treated as if they have no abilities or skills beyond their domestic duties. To their Singaporean employers, Corazon, Donita and Angel—three Filipina maids—are invisible, and they prefer it that way. Each is hiding something: a past, a sexual identity, a rebellious personality. When a society murder is conveniently pinned on one of their fellow maids, who subsequently goes missing, the three women use their ingenuity and intelligence and the fact that no one suspects what they’re capable of, to try and clear her name. The story was so riveting I couldn’t stop reading well into the wee hours.

Chemistry by Weike Wang

Marianne is the perfect daughter, perfect student, and perfect girlfriend. And she’s on her way to a breakdown. Compared to the accomplishments of her Chinese parents and her brilliant boyfriend, she’s failing. Her Ph.D. research is not going well, and she worries: did she actually choose Chemistry and a life in academia or did she blindly pursue what her parents wanted her to? Is she Chinese enough for her family? Is she American enough for her co-workers? I understood. I was born to Indian parents but felt foreign among other Indians. I spoke perfect English but never felt comfortable in American circles either. I had no desire to go to medical, biz or law school like other Asians, but I had no idea what else I wanted to do with my life. Marianne’s “otherness” was my “otherness,” and her rejection of the life others imagined for her is my rejection as well.

We thank Alka for joining us for the event, and for sharing these incredible recommendations with us, books that have meant so much to her on her journey.

You can find out more about Alka at https://www.alkajoshi.com/ where you can also see three incredible scenes filmed from the novel, working with Director Radha Mehta, cinematographer Isue Shin and an incredible cast and crew.

You can also follow Alka on Instagram and Facebook.