I was taken by Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence from the start, lingering over the epigraph, “From the time of birth to the time of death, every word you utter is part of one long sentence.” –Sun Yung Shin, Unbearable Splendor...
I was not familiar with the term ‘slow journalism’ which, per a search, has multiple definitions (my favorite is “unbreaking news”). Words that fit Radhika Iyengar’s Fire on the Ganges include “storytelling” and “taking time” – to listen, to observe,...
Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, is the first short story collection to win the International Booker Prize, an award given to the English translation of book written in another language. The prize recognizes “the vital work of translation” –...
Habitations – a place where one lives, the process of living. Vega Gopalan thinks she may be pregnant, but she doesn’t want her suspicion confirmed. Confirmation means the decision will be made and Vega is not sure she wants a...
Coming to America – Part 1 About three months ago I started two books with, published some 40 years apart, with essentially, the same story line. Both focus on young Indians coming to the US, leaving family and the comforts...
“The Hanuman Chalisa by Tulsidas is one of the best-known and best-loved poems in the world. Tens of millions of people recite it by heart, and chant it daily, as well as in times singularly joyful or sorrowful—or when they...
In Edison, our hero Prem is challenged to explain “What is good about Hindi movies?” It’s not something he has thought about – to a devotee, they just are. Pondering the question, he comes up with They crammed it all...
~ A History of Burning, by Janika Oza ~ Grand Central Publishing, 2023 He hadn’t seen his family in nearly fifty years. His mother was gone, his middle sister too. These sentences, about 100 pages into Janika Oza’s A History...
The Story of a Widow is a lovely book by Musharraf Ali Farooqi about a middle-aged woman in Karachi adjusting to widowhood. The story begins as Mona Ahmad reflects on her marriage and wonders what, if anything, she should do...
n an interview at the end of The Other Woman, a collection of short stories primarily about extramarital affairs, editor Monica Das says she was interested in studying the literary representation of polygamy and bigamy and their adverse socioeconomic impact...
At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I was attacked and almost killed by a young man with a knife just after I came out on stage at the...
When I picked up this collection of short stories, Next Door by Jahnavi Barua, I was intrigued by the idea — to be invited into the homes and lives of strangers. What I didn’t expect was such darkness. Set mainly...
It’s not that the storyline lacks plausibility. Some of us are all too familiar with the NRI engineer, MD or MBA grad who goes to India for 3 weeks and comes back married to a virtual stranger, the so-called ‘marriage...
Here are five stories, set in Southeast Asia and on the Indian subcontinent-each one bearing the weight and substance of a short novella-narrated by young women who find themselves, often as expatriates, face to face with the compelling circumstances of...
When I was 30, a well-intentioned, non-Indian adult suggested I write a letter to my mother, let her know how she had made me feel for decades – get it all out. I smiled and said, Indian daughters don’t do...
A diasporic novel that doesn’t quite hang together
Homo neanderthalis, homo sapiens, and human consciousness
Tall, fair and cute
Life Passages
Family secrets, enduring bonds
Deception in Enniscorthy and Lindenhurst
From Mayur Palli to Gurgaon: Delhi’s Different Worlds
Grueling and gorgeous
Foster Care Indictment
An uneven slice of Memphis life
Recent Comments