Description

A 2026 BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN THE OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES AND NEW STATESMAN

‘Captivating, gripped me from the first page’ ELIF SHAFAK
‘An unflinching, violent storm of a novel’ TASH AW
‘Extraordinary’ SALMAN RUSHDIE
‘A dark, brazen fairytale’ LEILA ABOULELA
‘Part holy legend, part undeniable, illuminating prophecy of how we will overcome’ V.V. GANESHANANTHAN

Any moment now, we would grow up, and we would become them, waking late and hungry and with a job that had no name

On a desolate, sinking island, a group of children witness their mothers living lives of cruelty and servitude.

Bought and sold by Amma, the sadistic madam who was once herself sold into slavery, the women have learned to accept their fate. Yet their children weave fantastic tales of escape, imagining that someday they will leave the island and enjoy a life of freedom.

When Kusum Khan, a young, educated woman from the city, is forcibly brought to the island, she too is subjected to Amma’s violent induction. Yet Kusum refuses to yield, and soon the collective complacency of her fellow prisoners turns into a ferocity and defiance. Together, they begin a rebellion that will upend their island, their world and the very order of things.

An earth-shattering drama of resistance and female power, Uprising gives voice to the silenced through the story of a revolution no one saw coming.

Publisher Review

Captivating, gripped me from the first page and when I finished my heart was full — ELIF SHAFAK Tahmima Anam has written a kind of miracle. She has taken lives of awful hardship and woven from them a fable of terrible beauty. Uprising is extraordinary — SALMAN RUSHDIE I don’t know if there’s any story I wouldn’t trust Tahmima Anam to tell. Uprising has all the ferocity and tenderness I want in a book, and Kusum is a heroine for the ages. Anam’s words, as powerful as always, show us our brutal world and open an irresistible door to the better one beyond it. Let her beckon you to your best self with this brilliant, magical novel that’s part irrefutable reality, part holy legend, part undeniable, illuminating prophecy of how we will overcome — V.V. GANESHANANTHAN, Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction An unflinching, violent storm of a novel, yet also full of humanity. It broadens our understanding of how literature can capture life in all its ugliness and glory – a magnificent achievement — TASH AW An urgent, collective-voice novel . . . I loved it — ALEX PRESTON * * Observer * * A dark, brazen fairytale with seething forests, a wicked matriarch and monsters who devour the flesh of innocent maidens. With gusto, Anam casts a spell that ignites and lights up the circuits and dynamics of exploitation, and offers a way out — LEILA ABOULELA A fierce, bold novel that is tender towards its subjects and unsparing in its challenge to us as readers: to see the dispossessed of the world as Anam does, as fully, beautifully, heartbreakingly human — MONICA ALI The politics of rich and poor across the countries of the Global South play out to powerful effect . . . Tahmima Anam’s Uprising, about enslaved sex workers in climate-threatened Bangladesh * * New Statesman * * Through the lives of a handful of women trapped in a brothel, Tahmima Anam paints a kaleidoscopic picture of a part of Bengal Delta that is in the throes of cataclysmic change – economic, technological and environmental. Both devastating and inspirational, Uprising is not to be missed — AMITAV GHOSH Powerful and uncompromising, Uprising looks into one of the darkest corners of the world and finds bright fire — KAMILA SHAMSIE