35. Indian & Pakistani authors at the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival London 2025

35. Indian & Pakistani authors & poets talk to co-hosts Paul Waters & Jonathan Kennedy on the We'd Like A Word books & authors podcast at the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival London 2025 (which Paul also co-organises). We hear from Devike Rege on Indian politics, whether "home is a place where you can be comfortably racist" & her book Quarterlife; from Shueyb Gandapur on his book Coming Back - The Odyssey of a Pakistani Through India, on the unusual challenges of getting his book published in India, and on his Pakistani home Dera Ismail Khan & how Hindus and Sikhs who fled during partition preserve memories of the city in India, & on and the unusual challenges of getting his book published in India; from KSLF organiser Niloufer Bilimoria; from Saba Karim Khan on the Pakistan #itscomplicated essay collection she edited & contributed to, & how to get behind the cliches of potraying Pakistan; from Muhammed Ali Bandial on his contribution to Pakistan #itscomplicated & his complex relationship with his homeland; from Prabhu Guptara of Pippa Rann publishing, Global Resilience publishing & Salt Desert Media; from poet Tanya Rai who is @diversityofme on Instagram; & from poet Devi Chatterjee who has also helped develop the Poetry Archive's new online collection of south Asian poets reading their own work.And we also hear about the recent India-Pakistan conflict and ceasefire, Saraiki language & Pashtun culture, Lahore authors Awais Khan & Faiqa Mansab, Pakistani Olympic gold medallist javelin thrower, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji, the Marati language, poets Sudeep Sen and R Parthasarathy, the Rann of Kutch salt desert & the Great Indian Salt Hedge, Stephen Huyler's book Transformed by India - A Life, & poets Rabindranath Tagore, Bhanu Kapil & Sampurna Chatterji.WHO IS JONATHAN KENNEDY? Jonathan was Director of Arts in India for 5 years for the British Council. He's been everywhere in India and knows everyone there involved in culture. He was also for 12 years the Executive Director of Tara Arts, looking at the world through a South Asian lens. Jonathan is doing some India & South Asian episodes of We'd Like A Word with us every now & then. We'd Like A Word is a podcast & radio show from authors Paul Waters & Stevyn Colgan. (And sometimes Jonathan Kennedy.) We talk with writers, readers, editors, agents, celebrities, talkers, poets, publishers, booksellers, & audiobook creators about books - fiction & non-fiction. We go out on various radio & podcast platforms. Our website is http://www.wedlikeaword.com for information on Paul, Steve & our guests. We're on Twitter @wedlikeaword & Facebook @wedlikeaword & our email is [email protected] Yes, we're embarrassed by the missing apostrophes. We like to hear from you - questions, thoughts, ideas, guest or book suggestions. Perhaps you'd like to come on We'd Like A Word to chat, review or read out passages from books.Paul is the author of a new Irish-Indian cosy crime series set in contemporary Delhi. The first in the series is Murder in Moonlit Square, which published by No Exit Press / Bedford Square Publishers in October 2025 - but you can pre-order it now. (Ah go on.) It'll also be published in India in paperback in October 2025 by Penguin India. Paul previously wrote the 1950s Irish border thriller Blackwatertown.We can also recommend Cockerings, the comic classic by Stevyn Colgan, and his hugely popular YouTube channel @Colganology