Literary Occasions: Essays by V. S. Naipaul, introduced and edited by Pankaj Mishra [in AsianWeek]
Eleven essays capture almost a half-century of Nobel Prize-winning Naipaul’s literary life. The final essay, “Two Worlds,” which he begins and ends by invoking Proust, is the lecture he gave when accepting the Nobel...
A runaway bestseller in its native Britain and quickly climbing the charts on this side of the pond, Ali’s assured debut novel follows the life of Bangladeshi-born Nazneen, who arrives at age 18 in...
Already a bestseller in India and Australia, this debut novel by LeHunte (who is hapa of South Asian and British parents) centers around the family of Aakash, a sage and healer who...
A British graduate student esconsced in a new life based in Santa Barbara, California, embarks on a labyrinthine worldly journey in search of lost ancient Sufi manuscripts believed to have been smuggled out of Iran.
Review: <a...
A fascinating, serpentine tale of a privileged Indian boy who at 15 is thrown out into the streets by the man he thought was his father, and how he becomes a chameleon re-inventor of himself in...
The latest novel by this year’s Nobel Prize winner examines dislocation, tragic relationships, and the ultimately redemptive powers of love. Willie Chandran, born in India to a Brahmin who married down, immigrates...
Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest work, When We Were Orphans, is a remarkable novel of love, loss, and potential redemption. In the same understated, quiet style that worked so well in his...
A word of advice: Don’t read The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (which just won the Pulitzer for fiction) at the same time as Anita Desai’s new collection of short stories, Diamond Dust....
To reveal that the theme song to Meera Syal's novel, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee is Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” might...