Myung and Laleh are keepers of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to an enigmatic figure they know only as 'Great Wisa'. To Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough. When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and for Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for generations: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.

Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it asks: in the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?

Tashan Mehta is a novelist whose interest lies in form and the fantastical, and how a dialogue between these elements may offer us new and collective ways of seeing. Her debut novel, The Liar’s Weave, was published in 2017 and shortlisted for the Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award. Her short stories have been anthologised in Magical Women and the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction: Volume II.

Tashan will be in conversation with SwapBook! co-curator, Vedant Naik. Vedant divides his time between books and cinema when he's not producing podcasts at Manicpod. A self-confessed serial reader, Vedant enjoys reading across the fiction and non-fiction spectrum though he has a particular fondness for books on cinema and art.