Uprising
Tahmima Anam
Available as Hardback, eBook
21 May 2026
A rebellion ignites amongst a community of sex workers on an isolated island in this fiercely moving novel – inspired by the real women of Banishanta, Bangladesh
A 2026 BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN THE OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES AND NEW STATESMAN
‘An unflinching, violent storm of a novel’ TASH AW
‘Extraordinary’ SALMAN RUSHDIE
‘A dark, brazen fairytale’ LEILA ABOULELA
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.
“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
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“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
“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
Tahmima Anam
Tahmima Anam is the author of the Bengal trilogy and a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the O. Henry Award. Her short story ‘Garments’ was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Granta Best of Young British Novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she trained as an anthropologist at Harvard University and now lives in London.