Two Unflinching Voices of our Generation: Karthika Nair and Maram al-Masri

We love new publications, especially ones by talented women writers.
Women who aren't afraid to ditch tradition and demonstrate the feminine experience like a time bomb - always in a moment of explosion.

Recently, Arc Publications have published the Syrian poet Maram al-Masri. In her latest book Barefoot Souls, Maram gives detailed accounts of Syrian women who have been silenced and still remain unheard. This is what makes her work so significant and compelling. Throughout Barefoot Souls, Maram allows the reader to access records of hidden human emotion, those which are presently being censored. Why is it that we never hear the stories of Syrian women? Is it really necessary that history should be recorded only through men? The poems within Barefoot Souls offer no world of restriction but rather a world in which suppression is shattered into sudden freedom and liberation.

Likewise, we're extremely proud to be publishing the dazzling, prize-winning Tata Literature Live Book of the Year, Until the Lions by Karthika Naïr, a retelling of the Mahabharata - one of the world's most compelling texts. Karthika plays with preconceptions of the original text in a way that has never been seen before. By donning a series of ancient masks, Nair cleverly passes down a refreshing, potent and powerful perspective exhibiting something very unnerving in her vision: the choreography of humanity.

No doubt, Maram al-Masri and Karthika Naïr are certainly two poets whose work is not to be overlooked.