11 Books Featuring South Asian Characters to Read in 2021

The very real challenges of a cross-cultural, interracial first love are at the heart of Rajurker’s debut. When high school senior Rani Kelkar, aspiring visual artist, falls for Oliver, she lies to her doting, conservative parents and begins dating him in secret. Oliver isn’t a great boyfriend; as the toxic relationship begins to unravel, Rani desperately tries to fit into Oliver’s dysfunctional family, and Oliver displays racist attitudes and behaviours. Though some amount of heartbreak is on the horizon, Rani finds her balance among culture, expectation, identity, and expression.

Orphan Daya Wijesinghe, 18, avoids confronting the emotional pain of losing her parents in a car accident that she survived by inflicting physical pain on herself: she copes by reveling in her skateboarding bruises. When Daya is introduced to roller derby — a sport in which opportunities to bruise are countless — she finally discovers a place of deep healing. Boteju’s novel, her second, is colorful and brutal, and a celebration of love and self-acceptance.

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant Zara Hossain and her family have been waiting for their green cards for nine years, and Zara has tried not to rock the boat, even as she faces overt Islamophobia at school. But when her house is vandalized with racist graffiti by her tormentor and his gang, she takes justice into her own hands with a move that places her family’s entire future at risk. Khan’s examination of the legal difficulties many immigrants face on their road to citizenship, and the precariousness of the immigrant experience more generally, fortify this timely novel.

Popular Hani Kahn comes out as bisexual to her friends, but they don’t believe she is — because she has only dated girls. So Hani lies, and says she’s in a relationship with nerdy Ishita Dey. The pair, who use each other for benefit at first, slowly fall for each other and face mutual adversaries. This queer, Bengali romcom playfully bends enduring genre tropes: enemies to lovers, fake dating, and slow burn.

The Mirza girls — recent high-school graduate Noreen and her mother Ruby — travel to Delhi, India in the hopes that the gap-year trip will alleviate the sorrow of the loss of Ruby’s sister and pull Noreen out of her post-senior year malaise. Part family drama, part romcom — Noreen meets Kabir, with whom she has a whirlwind romance — part love letter to Delhi, Karim’s novel explores grief and identity, love and confidence.

Indian weddings are often over-the-top, multi-day affairs and Padmini “Mini” Kapoor wants to give her sister Vinnie a bash to remember, especially after the loss of their mother. With Bollywood on her mind, but hindered by a limited budget and an uninterested father, Mini pulls together her mother’s dream wedding in this joyful and predictably satisfying book, even when a romance distracts her and a super-storm threatens the event.

Chanani’s second full-length graphic novel delivers another magical-realist story about loss, love, and choice. With the help of a time-travelling jukebox, Shaheen and her cousin Tannaz undertake a time-bending, reality-bending quest to search for Shaheen’s missing, music-obsessed father. The book is also an illustrated deep dive into American musical history, and Chanani explores how music informs history, lived experience, and memory; Jukebox includes a playlist to complement the book’s album cover references.

In this conclusion to Bhathena’s “Wrath of Ambar,” a duology set in a fantasy world inspired by medieval India, Gul and Cavas together face an authoritarian monarch — Queen Shayla — who wants them both dead, but does not realize that their combined magic will be her demise. Lush and well-researched, Bhathena brings her series to a satisfying close as Gul and Cavas resist tyranny as they work to build a more just world.

Sisters of the Snake is the first installment in a twin-swap series — written by identical twins. When Rani, a princess, and Ria, a homeless girl, literally collide, they discover they are identical twins and plot to switch identities to prevent an upcoming war. The duo navigate deadly prophecies and dark magic and complicated romantic entanglements in this fast-paced and very funny fantasy.