The first article I read about the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking gave away the ending. I wasn’t planning to watch so it didn’t matter if Sima-from-Mumbai found her clients their perfect match. Then it started. Colleagues from work – they...
~ Indian MatchMaking, on Netflix ~ If the pandemic has already lowered your spirits, I recommend staying well away from ‘Indian MatchMaking’, streaming on Netflix. Its portrayal of the Indian and Indian-American community is thoroughly depressing. The reality TV series...
~ Tanamera, by Noel Barber ~ When I first saw this title, I didn’t recognise it straightaway, being more accustomed to reading it as 2 separate words: ‘Tanah Merah” – Merah is red, and Tanah is soil, land, even territory....
~ Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams ~ Queenie Jenkins is a young black woman (2nd generation Jamaican) from south London (the geography is important to her) working in journalism (The Daily Read, culture section) in London. London’s multiculturalism and segregation are...
~ On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong ~ Gorgeous is a good description for the beautiful language in this novel. But difficult could be another word, to describe the storyline. I confess I read the novel while only...
~ Amnesty, by Arvind Adiga ~ Amnesty is vintage Adiga. Need I say more? After the disappointment of Selection Day (which was by no means awful, just less accessible!), it is a joy to go back to the powerful, punchy,...
~ How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position, by Tabish Khair ~ A very erudite and charming little novel from beginning to end. ,Our unnamed narrator-protagonist is not unlike the author himself, a South Asian who lives in...
~ Gun Island, by Amitav Ghosh ~ This review of Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island will be brief, lest it turn into a rhapsody. One on hand, there is the temptation to go on at length heaping praise endlessly on the...
~ The Wangs vs The World, by Jade Chang ~ This is quite a long novel, 49 chapters in 350 plus pages of close set typescript, but having finished it, it seems to have gone nowhere. The plotline runs that...
~ The Book of Unknown Americans, by Cristina Henríquez ~ The title and the first few pages immediately tell you what the author is trying to accomplish here: tell the stories of Americans whose accomplishments rarely get attention, who both...
~ Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee ~ The novel begins with 22 year old protagonist Casey Han, who has just graduated from Princeton, coming home to Queens, where her Korean immigrant family have always lived, for a...
~ This Green and Pleasant Land, by Ayisha Malik ~ This novel is kept extremely lighthearted despite taking on some weighty issues in UK society (such as English identity, the rise of Islamophobia, village mentality, discrimination, hate crime, etc.) The...
~ A Frightfully English Execution, by Shamini Flint ~ It’s tempting to describe Shamini Flint’s Inspector Singh novels as ‘cosy mysteries’. They feature an appealingly crusty detective, and are full of sly humour. Despite their lack of pretentiousness, though, they...
~ The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, by Balli Kaur Jaswal ~ Can a pilgrimage to honour their mother’s dying wishes bring three bickering sisters together? And can they also examine the ghosts of their past and face the...
~ The Farewell, a film by Lulu Wang ~ A smart, touching film about diaspora and culture, The Farewell features Awkwafina in a wonderful starring role as Billi: Chinese-American, living in New York, with a grandmother in Changchun, China. Billi’s...
Recent Comments