Project Bookshelf: Tara Rahman

The bookshelf in my room contains different literary genres and book forms—manga, graphic novels, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Many of these books center on diverse characters, histories, and cultures, or are written by authors from traditionally marginalized communities. I have always enjoyed reading global literature and stories that highlight underrepresented voices. Growing up as a queer and first-generation Bangladeshi-American in small-town North Carolina, I actively sought out books where I could see identities and experiences like mine in the pages, as well as books that taught me about different time periods and regions of the world. 

The top shelf is dedicated to my manga and graphic novel collection, which mostly consists of shoujo and josei manga (genres that explore the experiences and perspectives of girls and women), queer and yuri/GL (Girls’ Love) manga, and queer and feminist comics and graphic novels. As a teenager exploring her queer identity, comics like Lumberjanes and manga like Bloom into You were some of the first stories I read that showed wholesome, positive representation of queer and sapphic teenage characters and relationships. Coming from a South Asian household and a small, conservative high school, it comforted me to see BIPOC and Asian queer characters who could be happy, loved, and even fall in love. 

The bottom shelf holds YA and literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. My favorite reads have tended to lean towards historical fiction, or books that address social and historical issues, such as war, gender-based violence, and racial discrimination and oppression.

For instance, Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys follows Lina, a Lithuanian teenage girl and artist who is arrested alongside her family and deported to a Siberian labor camp under Stalin’s regime. I first read this book in the seventh grade and it opened my eyes to a chapter of World War II history that I did not see often in YA or children’s historical fiction. This was also the first time I had read a book for young readers that did not censor or avoid talking about the cruelty and violence of war, and the generational trauma it leaves behind. Sepetys’s writing style Between Shades of Gray became a key inspiration for my own YA story on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. 

Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns traces the intertwined lives of two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, their bond, and their experiences facing war, patriarchy, and domestic violence from the 1960s to the early 2000s. As you can see from its well-worn condition, I’ve read this book more times than I can count. Hosseini’s ability to weave Afghanistan’s history into the narrative and illustrate the country’s cultural heritage, social structures, and sociopolitical issues is something I deeply admire. Coming from a Muslim family myself, I could also relate to Mariam and Laila’s stories on a personal level, such as their relationships with their families and the patriarchal systems around them. 

One of the things I noticed while reading different YA and literary historical fiction books was that there were not many that focused on South Asian history, and more specifically Bangladeshi history. This quest led me to pursue a Special Studies in creative writing during my senior year at Smith College, where I conducted academic and literary research in order to write a YA historical fiction set in Bangladesh. The Song of Our Swampland by Manzu Islam was one of the books that I read and referred to in my project. What makes this book especially interesting is that, compared to how much of the English-language nonfiction and fiction on Bangladesh is based on the city center of Dhaka, this book looks at the progression of the war and development of the independence movement from the perspective of rural and marginalized communities in the region. As a Bangladeshi-American born and raised in the United States, reading The Song of Our Swampland and working on this creative writing project was impactful for me because it helped me to learn more about my family’s country of heritage and understand the nuances within collective memories of war. 

This bookshelf only represents a portion of all the books in my collection. After my parents and I moved from Cary to Holly Springs, North Carolina, many of my books are scattered all around the house. The children’s books I grew up with, ranging from The School for Good and Evil to Faith, Hope, and Ivy June, take up three out of four shelves on a bookshelf in the garage (the last shelf holds my father’s chemistry books and Bengali-language books). Having recently finished my master’s thesis in Global Development, my academic books on development theory and practice, gender, and Bangladeshi and South Asian history are piled on my work desk, while the British and postcolonial literature, confessional poetry books, and creative writing books I used in my English degree are sitting on a small shelf right behind me. Each of these books has shaped me into the reader, researcher, and person I am today. 

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