Wednesday, November 29, 2006

A Book I Await

The Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, due out in January from John Murray, promises to be a rich, interesting novel with the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War as background. It is attracting positive press coverage already. The Guardian called her "a major new talent." Excerpt to appear in January's Granta. Wow!

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1957394,00.html

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

me too, read the Guardian piece using a link from NFB .... incidentally they had you on their front page for a while too ...
this would be the first 'world class' work on 1971 .... hopefully ....always wondered why a classic in Bangla has not emerged, you know like a 'War & Peace' or a 'Man's Fate' ( Malraux's book on the Spanish civil war)...
in any event always a pleasure to peruse your musings ... very nice pics of 'catmando' ...
noticed the kids were not wearing any gloves, not that cold yet, maybe ....
cheers ....

ulysses said...

Thank you tshaheb. Yes, I too wondered why an "epic" had not been written. Humayun Ahmed has written a large novel on 1971, but have not read it.

Astute observation re: gloves. It was cold in catman-do compared to Dhaka (low 6C) and a few kids were wearing them, I imagine in January they will pick up.

sshaheb

Anonymous said...

Just finised reading it as I was lucky to get a advanced proof. I really liked it. It crossed my expectation and I was really proud to be the son of such muktijodhdahs
Tahmima is the real thing, She will go far.


shujon

ulysses said...

Well Shujon you are very lucky, and it is good to know you liked the book. I understand that the issue of Granta with her excerpt is out. I would keep a copy - it might become a collector's item!