British WWII novels often have an oldfashioned charm with their dashing doomed fighter pilots or sturdily phlegmatic women keeping up the home front. On the surface, The Kitchen Front would appear to be a pleasant addition to the collection, but...
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...
Most spy stories and thrillers involve men, so Flynn Berry’s Northern Spy is immediately a welcome addition to the genre. The protagonist is Tessa, a Belfast native with a beloved sister called Marian, and the men in this novel appear...
Since I have devotedly followed the entire No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and mildly enjoyed a handful of other McCall Smith novels too, I was delighted to find he has placed this new one in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon),...
The Irish Magdalene laundries are now infamous: they were run to house unmarried pregnant (‘fallen’) women, who laboured in unpaid servitude for years or decades. Their babies were taken away from them and adopted out. The women were indefinitely incarcerated,...
It is a book which seems deceptively low-key and insignificant because of the very self-absorbed person the protagonist is, who wants to only live in her own little, self-circumscribed world, but which is actually told quite well, and is very...
‘I have all kinds of medical problems’, said the middle-aged lady. ‘Swollen foot, bad knees, stomach problems… and the doctors said there was nothing they can do!’ She was pleased to find a copy of Home Remedies by TV Sairam...
This is my first acquaintance with Sigrid Nunez’s writing and I am left hoping I will have many other opportunities to further my acquaintance with more. Nunez’s style is a smooth stream of consciousness, an intelligent, introspective, painfully honest stream...
April in Spain refers to the month as well as a person. It’s not a particularly clever pun, and to me, this was reflective of the novel as well. Is it a mystery? Not a very successful one, as the...
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...
Indra Nooyi’s memoir opens with a charming anecdote. In 2009 she was invited to the White House to meet India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. When Obama introduced her, Manmohan Singh exclaimed, “Oh! But she is one of us!” And the...
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...
Ballet is a notoriously brutal profession. From early childhood through their teens, dancers must train and practice relentlessly, until they make it to a professional dance company with the hope of eventually attaining principal dancer status. An injury can derail...
The idea behind this plotline is quite intriguing: a 70 year old woman left by her husband and feeling depressed, spots a black dress in a charity shop, Scoop neck, clingy. It spoke of cigarettes and Martinis […] snug but...
Damon Galgut’s novel reflects the slow and partial fulfillment of the promise of the country it is set in: South Africa. It is a memorable read, the kind that stays with you for weeks afterwards, the kind where a passage...
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