Tagore's Salon

London-based space dedicated to highlighting & discussing translated and Global South literatures. Contact us at tagoressalon@gmail.com or on Instagram at @tagoressalon.ldn.

Events Mailing List

§ 02 — Events

A selection of our past events.

Full archive below

Brick Lane Bookshop · inaugural event · apr 2025

Righteous anger in south asian literature

Featuring Abir Mukherjee — of A Rising Man and Hunted Flame — alongside Gurnaik Johal, author of Saraswati, and Mishika Narula of Brown Girl Bookshelf.

This was hosted at the delightful Brick Lane Bookshop (BLB). It was standing room only! This was our first ever event, so we were flying blind. We started with BLB, who from the get-go showed an interest in our project. We then reached out to Abir, Gurnaik and Mishika with invitations that made it clear why we valued their work and thought they were a good fit for the panel. We had a capacity of forty for this event, but in total forty-five turned up.

We started with some introductory remarks on Tagore's salon which we think resonated fairly well. The event went on for about two hours — an hour of Freddie's questions and an hour of audience questions. We've stayed in touch with our panellists since.

The Common Press · Bethnal Green · 2025

Translating queerness in SWANA writing

This event at The Common Press in Bethnal Green featured a lovely interdisciplinary panel. We had Sophie Chamas, of SOAS, Drew Demetry of NAFS, and Elias Jahshan of The New Arab. Standing room only again!

This was our first event at The Common Press, and there were queues out the door — gratifying. This event definitely drew a different demographic to our first, and required a different style of chairing. Laura rose to the occasion with aplomb, although Freddie is biased.

$Publishing Palestine$

Brick Lane Bookshop · 2025

Publishing Palestine

Featuring publisher Hope Nbada, Nashwa Nashreldin of ArabLit and Hazem Jamjoum — author and cultural historian of Safarjal Press.

In this salon, we examined the role of publishing and the literary industry in breaking down (or upholding) structural barriers to publishing Palestinian stories. What are the logistical challenges faced by writers and publishers (funding, internet availability, communication blockades), and how can we offer support in overcoming them? How do industry norms and resource pipelines enable oppression, and how can we fight them? How are publishing and Palestinian liberation linked to one another, and how might we create and hold space for anti-colonial creation?

Full Archive

Mar2026

Islam, Culture & Civilisation

Brick Lane Bookshop

Tharik Hussain · Saima Begum

What do culture and civilisation mean in an Islamic context — at a moment when there is constant pressure to produce a fixed, restrictive idea of what it means to be Muslim, or to belong to a culture at all? A conversation about identity, belonging, and the richness of Islamic intellectual and creative traditions.

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Nov2025

Vietnamese Storytelling, Memory & Translation

Brick Lane Bookshop

Phương Anh Nguyễn (An Việt Archives) · Tra My Hickin (An Việt Archives) · Kim Tran (Major Books)

How do memory, community archiving, and translation platform Vietnamese and British-Vietnamese stories — and subvert colonial understandings of Vietnamese history, war, and migration? Our speakers have been at the forefront of bringing Vietnamese writing to London, in a publishing landscape that still severely underrepresents Vietnamese voices.

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Oct2025

Labour & Literature

Brick Lane Bookshop · in collaboration with Wasafiri magazine

Dur e Aziz Amna · Farah Ali

How is labour performed in a society that is ill? What does creative work look like when done through pain? Dur e Aziz Amna and Farah Ali discussed how the characters in their debut novels struggle to define what success and happiness mean to them — and what it means to write about work, body, and survival.

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Aug2025

Faith & Literature in the Public Square

Brick Lane Bookshop

Nico Callaghan (Saqi Books) · Hina Khalid · Sufiyaan Salam

A conversation on what it means to write from faith — and to bring that writing into a public square that often demands a fixed, legible identity. Three speakers discussed Islam, literature, and the pressures of representation with frankness and beauty.

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Jun2025

Publishing Palestine

Brick Lane Bookshop

Hope Nbada · Nashwa Nashreldin · Hazem Jamjoum

The Palestine Book Award; Safar Jal Press, a newly launched Palestinian publishing house; and Footnote Press discussed their groundbreaking work. The event was a reminder that literature is expression — and that with freedom of expression under attack, pro-Palestinian writing must be protected, amplified, and centred.

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2025

Translating Queerness in SWANA Writing

The Common Press, Bethnal Green Road

Elias Jahshan · Dr Sophie Chamas · Drew Demetry

How is language a force for liberation — and for colonialism? How are diasporic queer communities using storytelling for community-building and reclamation? Three groundbreaking storytellers, scholars, and community-builders explored these questions together.

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Apr2025

Righteous Anger in South Asian Literature

Brick Lane Bookshop · Inaugural event

Abir Mukherjee · Mishika (Brown Girl Bookshelf) · Gurnaik Johal

Our inaugural event brought together three voices at the forefront of South Asian writing. Abir Mukherjee (Hunted; the Wyndham & Banerjee series) chose Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake as his desert island book. Mishika of Brown Girl Bookshelf chose Valarie Kaur's See No Stranger. Gurnaik Johal (We Move; Saraswati) spoke about literature's freedom from the constraints of personal background and particularism, and chose Ted Chiang's Exhalation as his desert island book.

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