For Samiha Hoque, writing is an act of political defiance. Her debut novel, Slums of Paradise, selected as a She Writes Press STEP winner and set for publication in August 2026, tells a story she spent a decade crafting while wondering if her words might endanger her family.
The Bangladeshi American author based her literary novel about immigration and vengeance politics on the lives of family, friends, and neighbors who lived under the Sheikh family regime in Bangladesh, combined with her own visit in 2014. The novel follows four Bengali teenagers across two time periods—1970 and 2014—as they navigate a country shaped by violence and political suppression.
What began as a melodramatic love story slowly unfolded into something deeper. Hoque realized every action, from where one worked to the person one married, was enmeshed with the political aftermath of 1971, including the bloody protests she witnessed in 2014. Hoque’s parents vowed never to return unless Sheikh Hasina was gone. “I couldn’t escape the vicious way in which Bangladesh gained independence in 1971 as much as my parents couldn’t,” Hoque explains. “Sheikh Mujibur Rahman seized control of a new nation, and his daughter crippled it in favor of her supporting political party.” The trauma permeated family interactions, created generational poverty, and dictated what one could say, despite Hoque’s father becoming an American citizen and starting a family in New York, physically removed from Bangladesh’s politics.
When History Changes Before Publication
On August 5, 2024, everything shifted. Sheikh Hasina was ousted through the July Revolution, and horror stories from her regime—including those from her father’s rule in 1972—emerged freely. Hoque had initially worried that publishing her story would endanger relatives in Bangladesh or create problems for her parents within New York’s Bengali community, some of whom were staunch supporters of the Sheikh family. However, the novel’s 2026 publication date now arrives in a different Bangladesh, one where the fear that suppressed free speech for decades has finally lifted, and the power dynamic of her supporters has significantly diminished.
“Our majority-Bangladeshi neighborhood celebrated with an impromptu parade of honking cars,” Hoque recalls when the news of Hasina’s exile broke in New York. “My parents were abuzz with joy and disbelief.”
The book’s journey reflects what Hoque calls “proof of the fear the Sheikh family instilled in freedom of speech.” For years, stories like her family’s remained untold, whispered only in private. Now, her debut novel about cultural traditions and political trauma joins a growing chorus of voices reclaiming Bangladesh’s suppressed history.
A Publishing Career Built on Identity
Hoque isn’t new to publishing or justice movements. The co-founder of independent press Shaherazad Shelves has already authored two picture books inspired by her Muslim Bengali upbringing: A Country of Beautiful People (2023) and Brave Is the Tiger (2026). She’s also a two-time Climate Justice Fellow for the Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health, and holds a degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences with an English minor. Her essays have won the Dean Myrtle Saxon-Jacobson Award in Expository Prose and earned a nomination for the 2021 Brooklyn Non Fiction Prize.
For Slums of Paradise, Hoque hopes to reach readers who gravitate toward literary and women’s fiction, as well as journalists and social justice advocates covering international politics. Her goal is simple but ambitious: she wants the novel exploring war, marriage, and generational trauma to be discussed in national book clubs and available in bookstores nationwide.
Sometimes a manuscript waits for the world to catch up. After ten years and a revolution, the moment for Hoque’s Slums of Paradise has finally arrived.
