Thrity Umrigar wrote a nuanced and sensitive exploration of the Indian employer-servant relationship in The Space Between Us, but sad to say, her latest novel Honor displays little of that nuance or sensitivity. There are two women at the center...
Although the book does not set out to overtly discuss race-related issues, the narrative nevertheless is underpinned by what it means to be a young coloured child in care, in 1980s UK. The author herself is of mixed-race descent (Irish...
I admit it is not unusual for me to select a book because it is written by a South Asian writer. Munaweera is one such, an American-Sri Lankan (who had also lived in Nigeria), before settling on Oakland, California. What...
When I first began reading this book, it was surprisingly uphill going, but only just for a few pages/chapters until one accustoms oneself to the writing style and dialogue in Ghanaian-inflected English, which is rather charming: You mean what? Miss...
We first encounter our protagonist, Hayat, a 2nd generation Pakistani American lad, in college, but very quickly, the narrative goes back to a time when Hayat was 10 years old. He lives with Muneer his mum, and Naveed, his dad,...
A seriously compelling read, one of those you can barely stand to have to put the book down to attend to life. The quality of the storytelling is what makes this novel so unput-down-able, as well as its characters whom...
A Taiwanese-American coming-of-age story, set in a blended family? It could have potential. Despite the title, the protagonist is not, in fact, a Tiger Mom, but is Lexa, the result of a romance between her Caucasian-American mother and a Taiwanese...
The Fortune Men has been shortlisted for the 2021 Booker, so I embarked on this reading experience with the full expectation that it would be of considerable merit – and it did not disappoint. The novel’s plotline is relatively simple,...
Difficult to slot into any genre, The Vietri Project starts with a notion that will appeal to book-lovers. Every few weeks, a letter arrives at a bookstore in Berkeley, California, asking for a large collection of books to be shipped...
As befits a philosophy graduate from Columbia, the novel opens with a contemplation of the notion of time and its elusive nature, before introducing us to Krishan and his home life in Colombo with his mother and aging grandmother. ...
Having reading reviews of how harrowing Gyasi’s Homegoing was, I have still not summoned the courage to read it yet, but her second novel has turned out very readable. Our protagonist is Gifty, a second generation Ghanaian immigrant in the...
It is no secret that the Indian-American middle class community is ambitious and competitive. Immigrants with professional backgrounds and advanced degrees who arrive in a new country typically push their children to even higher achievements. Many novels have described the...
This is a novella (just 157 pages) by Lahiri which she originally wrote in Italian, then translated herself, into English. It has over 45 chapters, so you can guess that each chapter is quite short. In expected Lahiri style, the...
Growing up in Karachi, Anvar was the rebellious, non-conformist kid in the family, snarkily resenting his perfect older brother Aamir. [Aamir] has gone through life checking all the right boxes that a model desi boy should check. […] Somehow he’s...
Note: There are no spoilers in this review because, well, it’s just not a Donne thing, to borrow a cheesy line from Anwar, the ‘hero’ of Syed M. Masood’s The Bad Muslim Discount. Spanning continents and decades, encompassing themes of...
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