Praise for Drown All the Refugees

Nawaid Anjum | Jul 18, 2026

In a wide-ranging conversation, Tabish Khair talks about his latest novel, Drown All the Refugees, the pull of the Gothic, refugees, home, migration, love, capitalism, humour, reading, writing and why literature still matters.

Tabish Khair is one of those writers who refuses to stay in a single lane. Over the past three decades, the Ranchi-born, Denmark-based author, who turned 60 this March, has written as though the world might still be persuaded by literature, juggling with enviable ease novels, poetry, criticism and cultural theory, taking readers from the dusty lanes of small-town India to the shadows of Victorian London and the disorienting realities of migration and exile.

His books (there are so many that you can be forgiven for losing count) never let ideas overshadow characters or stories drift free of history’s inconvenient questions about power, belonging, and otherness. He’s scholarly without being stuffy, and he never forgets that a good tale should unsettle you, make you laugh in dark places and catch you off guard. …

Kabir Deb | Jul 08, 2026

Displacement, in the language of science, is elegantly uncomplicated. It is the shortest straight line between an object’s initial and final positions. It is a measurement that disregards the countless turns, pauses, diversions, and obstacles encountered along the way. While distance records the entirety of the journey, displacement concerns itself only with the beginning and the end. Such precision, however, belongs to the certainty of mathematics and physics, not to the uncertainty of human existence. Human lives do not move in straight lines, nor can they be reduced to coordinates on a map. In the humanities, displacement acquires a profoundly different meaning. It is no longer a matter of geometry but of memory, identity, belonging, and loss.

To be displaced is not merely to leave one place and arrive at another. It is to carry an invisible archive of experiences that no physical journey can measure. Every home abandoned contains a history of joys, griefs, friendships, rituals, languages, and silences that continue to inhabit those who have left, even when the place itself has become inaccessible. The destination, meanwhile, rarely offers permanence. It often reveals itself as another temporary refuge, another uncertain beginning that may eventually become the starting point of yet another departure. In this sense, displacement is less a singular event than a recurring condition of existence, an endless negotiation between the places we remember and the places we are compelled to inhabit. Unless one possesses the privilege, and sometimes the audacity, to claim a place as a permanent home, displacement becomes an enduring reality rather than an interruption

Everything suddenly seems displaced, subtle gradations erase borders, but it’s more forceful than that.

– Bret Easton Ellis

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Published at: 2 July 2026 8:02 pm by Vineetha Mokkil

Khair uses Gothic horror in his novel to paint a stark picture of the times we live in.

Tabish Khair’s new novel, Drown All the Refugees, is an anguished cry from the heart. Khair has explored the themes of displacement, alienation and the toll of leaving home in his works before. In Drown All the Refugees, he uses elements of Gothic horror to paint a haunting picture of the times we live in. Ours is a world in which refugees and immigrants are either forgotten or left to fend for themselves in the most brutal circumstances. Spectres haunt the landscape of Khair’s novel. Those who leave dream of home; those who are left behind mourn the ones who fled, the ones they lost. …

30 June, 2026 09:09 AM IST | Mumbai | Nandini Varma

Acclaimed author Tabish Khair addresses the global issue of migration and its fallout in his new book that is set in a Gothic universe.

Man Asian Literary Prize (2010) shortlisted author Tabish Khair was in the city as part of his book tour. We caught up with him to discuss his new release, Drown All the Refugees (HarperCollins India), which explores displacement through Gothic tropes. …

Published : Jun 28, 2026 11:54 IST – 11 MINS READ by Majid Maqbool

The award-winning writer says AI will mostly affect commercially driven fiction, while literature that asks difficult questions faces a deeper challenge from the market.

In Tabish Khair’s recently published novel Drown All the Refugees (HarperCollins India), the narrator shouts “Drown all the refugees” at a crowded literary gathering as the novel opens. The outburst springs from the anguish of his exiled life: his lover Abdul, a Palestinian, is dead, while his childhood friend Pedro, who crossed borders in search of a better life, never returned. The novel follows the narrator’s obsession as he confronts loss, absence, and the trauma of displacement. …

by Shweta Sunny Published on Jun 26, 2026, 14:20 IST

Tabish Khair’s Drown All The Refugees blends Gothic fiction and migration narratives in a haunting tale of displacement, memory and hope.

Set in Northeast India, the book explores displacement, grief and belonging through a supernatural narrative

What happens when someone returns home after crossing borders, only to come back unrecognisable? In Drown All The Refugees, Tabish Khair takes that unsettling question and transforms it into a haunting Gothic tale about migration, memory and the human cost of displacement. …