New Delhi: Niyogi Books proudly announces its latest publication Colour my Grave Purpleby ShehnabSahinunder its imprintfor English fiction, Olive Turtle.An anthology that weaves diverse narratives featuring unique characters, showcasing Assam’s vibrant cultural and socio-political landscape, the stories blend the natural and supernatural, providing a captivating journey that explores inter-species conflicts, taboos, and the region’s complexities. Spanning from the 1850s to the 2000s, the collection offers an immersive exploration of Assam’s evolution and identity through historical encounters.
The book is now scheduled to be launched on December 13, 2025 atKunzum Books, M Block Market, Greater Kailash II, New Delhi, at Theatre Kunzum (4th Floor), at 6.30 PM.
Praises for the book
A remarkable debut by an author who holds great promise. This work reflects her acute observations and experiences set in the culturally rich Northeast, juxtaposing its troubled history against a backdrop of vivid human emotions and providing a fascinating opportunity to explore depths long obscured by routine surface familiarity.
SALMAN KHURSHID, former EAM and Hony Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford
ShehnabSahin weaves fascinating fiction with truths drawn from historical accounts. These stories pull you towards a wild journey into the remote corners of mysterious, undiscovered Assam.
ADIL HUSSAIN, Actor
These tautly structured and masterfully told tales evoke the changing cultural and historical landscape of Assam with intensity, passion and veracity.
NAMITA GOKHALE, Author & Publisher
HumanitarianShehnabSahinwhen asked to comment on her book,said,‘Colour My Grave Purple was born out of my return to Assam during the unsettling months of the pandemic—a time when the world felt adrift, and I, too, was searching for a sense of ‘home.’ What I found was a place both familiar and changed, tender yet bruised. Each story became a way for me to journey back in time, to revisit the emotions and spaces that had once grounded me. In writing them, I tried to understand what home means in a world constantly shifting—to trace my own identity through Assam’s past and present, and to tell stories that go beyond its histories of violence and separatism, toward something more human, rooted, and real.’
Shehnab currently lives in Lebanon and Syria.
On publishing the book Trisha De Niyogi, Director and COO, Niyogi Books, says, ‘ShehnabSahin is a woman who has lived many lives, from being a civil servant to an international humanitarian worker, and she writes about felt experiences with an empathy that erases the distance between her and her reader. Her sense of home and displacement is not just understood from an aesthetic distance but deeply felt. Her work transforms Assam from a poorly understood conflict zone to a place of real people with real histories and countless beautiful stories. Color My Grave Purple is both a celebration of her birthland and a grievious accusation of its shortcomings, tracing its lineage from the 17th century to the present in poignant, lyrical prose.’
About the Book
Price: INR 695 / Format: Paperback / Pages: 260
Colour My Grave Purple is an unusual anthology of historical fiction from Assam which spans a century of the Northeastern state’s colourful past, evoking a vivid journey from the 1850s to the 2000s. Through stories about the peoples, cultures, ecology and socio-political paradigms of the frontier region, readers will stumble upon a fascinating mix of characters and entities; from occult practitioners and drunk elephants to a British-Naga queen and the Chinese red army. In these stories, Assam will encounter Britain, Japan and China through lived experiences that seamlessly traverse the natural-supernatural dichotomy, while attempting to understand its own identity as a state. Weaving remnants of social unrest, taboos, inter-species conflict and cultural movements into an undulating canvas, Colour My Grave Purple makes an attempt to locate the making of the region, from modern-day Assam to a time that is now a mere memory.
