This graphic novel published by The House of Anansi (2015) was an educative read. The art was moving, and the story brave and simple. The Outside circle stands for the warriors who protect their clan from the circumference, the vanguards. The story is about two Aboriginal brothers coping with the trauma of their past and making…
Read more The Outside Circle was a trot into the archives of a less talked about history
The setting reminded me of the six-hour journey (two-way) I used to take while commuting the Oxford-London route everyday for work a few years ago. I knew the people in the story, because I saw them from my train window too. Having just finished reading Paula Hawkins’ debut novel Girl on the Train with a good pace and thriller-like…
Read more Thrillers can thrill but violence numbs
[This review first appeared in The Ottawa Review of Books in their October issue] It’s hard enough to live, why lose? Sheila Heti paints her professional and artistic identity in this multi-hued solitary and social quest for that quintessential peace of mind! Her journey is self-guided with a supporting cast of friends, strangers and acquaintances who impact her life…
Read more “How Should a Person Be?”
I love this short story collection. Each one is just so brilliant and form-defying. These are the kind of stories that plague my dreams and nightmares each day. I wake up seeing these people, awaking to the call of their longings and threats, peeking from the edge of my seat in some miraculously acquired human…
Read more Suddenly, A Knock on the Door (Etger Keret)
I remember returning to Chennai for a winter break from college when the tsunami had struck. Both my grandparents were alive then. I remember strolling the ghost town a couple of days after the storm had gone. The roads were desolate stretches and fishermen’s boats had been swept off the shores, parked on the main…
Read more The Wave of Grief
Ithaca by David Davidar (Harper Collins 2011) is the story of international publishing today. Or yesterday. The novel does not, though, read like news. Is there a story that’s exclusively about publishing anymore? And, as an extremely smart gentleman friend queried a couple of years ago when I told him I was trying to “Master”…
Read more Ithaca and the Roller Coaster that was (publishing)
FOREIGN: fiction’s dark underbelly Some contemporary books might call attention to being post-Obama literature, wherein a set of references to the milestone American black president becomes either the backdrop or a defining moment for characters within a novel. President Obama is barely referenced in the opening pages of Foreign as the subject of our protagonist’s…
Read more Foreign: An urgent fiction
Adichie is a brilliant entertainer, and I think she will take that as a compliment from her readers. True to her TED Talk, she does not stick with a single story for a certain person, or in other words, does not serve you down the stereotypes; although this does not mean you don’t relate with…
Read more “Americanah” is a racy romp through race structures in modern day America
Manu Joseph is a poster-boy father, if his book is anything to go by. He writes about a family in Madras and their soul searching quest to get to the bottom of their older son’s suicide three years ago. The story thoughtfully plods down memory lane in what is a rich rumination of thoughts, triggers…
Read more What is Illicit Happiness?
Businessmen and women friends. Go to Chile. Now. You could be a student or native entrepreneur. Go. South with your partners. Silicon Valley dreams are giving way to the lure of Chilecon Valley, declared the Economist last year. According to an article, despite several other nations’ attempts to replicate a Silicon Valley and failing, Chile’s…
Read more Starting Up is Hot in Chile
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