This smorgasbord of stories explores love's dark underbelly. The author kickstarts the collection with a riotous story about a tiger in a zoo which falls in love with its keeper. In a frenzy of passion, it commits an act that sets off a series of events in which, after escaping...
(0) Comments | Posted 8 May 2012 | 10:50
Contemporary literature has witnessed many a vaunted wunderkind succumb to the dreaded second-novel syndrome. British-Bangladeshi Monica Ali's Brick Lane caused quite a flutter in literary London but was followed by a damp squib. With the American-sounding Bangladeshi Tahmima Anam's second outing The Good Muslim, one cannot help but feel a...
(0) Comments | Posted 11 March 2012 | 12:33
Serendipity looms large in Shehan Karunatilaka's Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew so it is perhaps somewhat curious that towards the end of my recent holiday - my first visit to Sri Lanka - I received a mail from the UK offering me an interview with the latest DSC Jaipur...
(0) Comments | Posted 8 November 2011 | 10:11
Rarely does a book fill you with trepidation, as you attempt to review it, because you feel so strong a duty to do it justice. I came across Home Boy in a bookshop in Lahore's Liberty Market on a visit to Pakistan and picked it up and some pre-conceptions into...
(1) Comments | Posted 19 October 2011 | 21:23
Mohammed Hanif's 2008 debut, "A Case of Exploding Mangoes", was an impressive feat of imaginative and literary skill. It justly propelled Mohammad Hanif into the top echelons of South Asian writing in English, Pakistani and Indian. It even garnered him a place on the Booker longlist - a crucial nod...
(0) Comments | Posted 24 May 2012 | 17:17