When Ryanna Quazi was growing up in Texas, she recalls “feeling just seen and so well represented” when reading South Asian books. In May this year, she launched Kahini Books, a pop-up, online bookstore that highlights South Asian fiction. He will have his next pop-up at Vienna October Festival October 1, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Quazi, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh, moved to the Washington area in 2019 and lives in Georgetown. She works in the field of public health and is preparing a master’s degree at George Washington University. There’s no place she’d rather open a bookstore, she says: “One of the things that drew me to DC wasn’t just my day job, but I loved the fact that in this area, it’s cool to read; it’s cool to be smart.
Kahini offers new and used books. Apart from books with South Asian representation, Quazi highlights other books that have not received special attention. She finds books with less than 10,000 ratings on Goodreads or books that didn’t make it The New York Times Where USA today Bestseller lists.
Quazi hopes to one day open a physical store, but for now she’ll stick to pop-ups at festivals and markets, where she pays vendors’ fees to set up a stall. She also sells used books and tries to sell as many books as possible for less than $15. “I know sometimes it’s just not possible for people to buy a brand new book for $25,” she says.
South Asians have seen a lot more representation in movies and TV in recent years, Quazi says, mentioning Indian Matchmaking on Netflix for example. But books, she says, have a different impact than other media, and two books she is particularly proud to have published are Hana Khan continues by Uzma Jalaluddin and brick path by Monica Ali. “The fact that you’re sitting there for hours imagining the story in your head and imagining who these characters are,” she says, “I think that has a different emotional impact on you.”
