Shubnum Khan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Shubnum Khan is a published South African author and artist.

She has had her writing be published in The New York Times, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, HuffPost, and others. She is an Art Omi fellow in New York and a fellow at Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai. She is also an Octavia Butler Fellow with Jack Jones Literary Arts.

The author’s name is pronounced ‘shubb-numb’ and she resides in Durban by the sea. She is known for writing several novels, including Onion Tears, How I Accidentally Became a Stock Photo, and The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years. The Djinn received starred reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews and was picked as an Editor’s Choice for the New York Times.

She has also seen her writing appear in such places as O the Oprah Magazine, Saraba Magazine, New Contrast, and The Sunday Times.

Shubnum attended the University of KwaZulu-Natal, graduating with her degree in media studies and a master’s degree in English. She was shortlisted for the Miles Moreland Writing Scholarship for African Writers. She was also picked to be a Mellon Fellow in 2019 at Stellenbosch University.

If she could go anywhere in the book world, she would go to Middle-Earth and spend time with the hobbits. She deals with writers block by reading until she feels inspired to write again.

Onion Tears is a fictional book from Shubnum Khan. The 2011 book made the longlist for the Sunday Times Literary Prize. It was shortlisted for The Penguin Prize for African Writing and the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize in Fiction.

This is the story of three different generations of Muslim women who live in southern Africa in the suburbs. This story covers themes of life, loss, and love.

There’s Khadeejah Bibi Ballim, a first-generation Indian who is stubborn but works hard. She really wants to see the homeland that she loves so much and is frequently questioning what exactly that it is that she is doing here at the point of Africa.

Her daughter Summaya is thirty-seven years old and trying to come to terms with her identities of being Indian and South African. Meanwhile, Summaya’s daughter Aneesa is a girl that has her own questions at eleven years old. She wants to know whether her mother is holding things back about her father’s death and why she won’t tell her what happened.

The past ends up coming into the present as this book goes through the lives of the three different women. People keep secrets, and sometimes they mute emotions and swallow words to keep the peace. Tragedy is always threatening to come down on these women. Will the family be brought together or torn apart by the difficulties they face? Read this book to find out!

How I Accidentally Became a Global Stock Photo: And Other Strange and Wonderful Stories is a unique collection of stories from Shubrum Khan. The 2021 book that is part love letter, travel diary, and memoir was longlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Prize. This unique book is well worth checking out!

Shubnum Khan was part of a college art project where she signed up for a photoshoot and participated. But she didn’t think that the photographs from this session would end up being everywhere, advertised and put on billboards all over the world!

Two years after the fact, the picture of her face smiling had done so many things. It had helped to sell condos in Florida and Mumbai, and taken in more subscribers to try dating websites, and convinced customers that they would benefit from skin-lightening creams.

There are so many misadventures that she has had, and the author channels them all into this completely unique book. It’s part a travel diary and partially a memoir, but either way, Shubnum invites the reader to come along with her as she goes all over the world, from the Himalayas to teach off the grid, to the ocean in Turkey, to getting married in Shanghai, this is a unique and important look at what it is to be a single Muslim woman in the world today.

This book summarizes the author’s experiences well and shows you that if you can have some hope and a sense of good humor, you can take on many of the strange surprises that life has to offer. Check it out to relive all of these unique memories with Shubnum Khan!