Bangladeshi-born British writer Tahmima Anam grew up in Paris, New York and Bangkok and later studied for a PhD in anthropology at Harvard University. After completing an MFA in creative writing, her first novel, A Golden Age, won best first book at the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes; she was named among Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2013 and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Her new novel, Uprising – which tells the story of sex workers trapped on an island, based on a real-life brothel in Bangladesh – was recently shortlisted for the Orwell prize. She will appear at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 26 August and the following month (12 September) will be in conversation with Natasha Walter at the Chiswick Book Festival.

I try to never leave London if I can help it. I'm a city girl, I like to know I can get everywhere on a bus or tube, and I need to be within a 10-minute walk of the following things: bubble tea, matcha and food that has some level of spice. But this month I’ve been on book tour and discovered Durham, a city so picturesque you'd think it wasn't real – a castle on a hill, a river that curves around so that you have to cross multiple bridges to get from one end of town to another. Not only does it have an offshoot of my favourite bubble tea chain (T4, if you must ask), but I had an excellent meal at Zaap Thai Street Food and ended my evening at what is now my favourite bookshop, Collected Books, where a group of like-minded Durham residents showed up en masse to ask me some truly excellent questions about revolutions, female rage, and what made me vomit while I was writing my novel (more on that later). It was a revelation.

Every other month, the curators at Palfest Bookshelf send me a parcel wrapped in brown paper. In March, I gratefully received a copy of Molly Crabapple's Here Where We Live is Our Country, which tells the story of the Jewish Bund, a movement of radical leftists who were also anti-Zionists. She weaves the story of her own family so skilfully that the whole thing reads like a thriller, and although we all know how it ends, it still gave me hope to discover that the most prominent Jewish political force in Europe was secular, socialist and anti-Zionist. This month, I received a copy of Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life by Samar Yazbek, her collection of the testimony of 26 survivors from Gaza who tell stories of devastating loss.

If you’ve been on the internet in the last two weeks, you will have heard this song, in which a redheaded young man lists a series of irrational complaints: “You never take me to Bangladesh/You never cook me sausage on an open flame/Never anoint me with oil/Never write me a novel/You never poison the mojitos of my enemies …”

As complaints go, these are endearingly idiosyncratic. But I found myself rather triggered by this song, because the singer, Ian McConnell, woefully mispronounces my country’s name, and so do the thousands of other people remixing the song. You will not understand this pain unless you come from a place that is both obscure and known for all the wrong things (floods). Finally, Bangladesh goes viral, but as usual no one can say it. The only good thing is that this song has given me the opportunity to correct peoples’ pronunciation and get repeatedly accused of “being fun at parties”. My inner cranky auntie has finally been exposed.

(109 mins, PG, in cinemas)

Laugh at me all you like, but after writing a novel so dark that it made me physically ill, I’m in the mood for a good old-fashioned whodunit. Except this one is told from the point of view of sheep who are trying to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd, an animal-loving inventor who reads them detective novels before bedtime. The sheep are voiced by a star-studded cast, and the human characters are equally well played. There’s a dark and stormy night, a series of revelations, a moment of genuine terror, and a plot twist to rival anything Poirot could’ve come up with. Consider it your comfort watch of the summer.

I love nothing better than speculative fiction in which women and men trade places (Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's sci-fi classic Sultana's Dream and Naomi Alderman's The Power are two excellent examples). Ōoku is a Japanese manga animation first published in 2004 and recently made into a Netflix show. A mysterious illness decimates 80% of the male population, and society is recreated into a matriarchy, with a female shogun in charge. The Ooku is the harem that serves this shogun, and palace intrigue, romance and battles over power make up the plot. It's addictive and thought-provoking, and beats any version of Game of Thrones. 

Uprising is published by Canongate (RRP £16.99; buy it at a discount at the Nerve Bookshop)