Another Gulmohar Tree

Another Gulmohar Tree
Author: Aamer Hussein
Publisher: Saqi
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2012-07-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1846590957

Usman is visiting post-war London from Pakistan when he meets a young aspiring artist called Lydia who has, like him, come out of an unhappy marriage. Just as the lonely strangers' friendship begins to blossom into something deeper Usman has to return to Karachi, leaving Lydia behind. Two years later, Lydia impulsively abandons her life in London and boards a ship to Karachi, where the two are married. But as the years flit by Usman feels distanced from his life and realises that he hasn't noticed the buds of the gulmohar tree unfurl. A beautiful account of a marriage that is in turns wry and unashamedly romantic. 'We are lucky to have Hussein among us, telling us stories as few can.' Amit Chaudhuri 'A lovely, strange, and very moving novel.' Ruth Padel 'At its heart it is a story of love, into which Hussein weaves all his remarkable skills of storytelling.' Kamila Shamsie 'In his splendid, dreamy Another Gulmohar Tree, Hussein gives us an indelible sense of two worlds - Karachi and London - in miniature and the strong parable of a love story that endures over a lifetime.' Joseph Olshan

The Cloud Messenger

The Cloud Messenger
Author: Aamer Hussein
Publisher: Saqi
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2011-10-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1846591031

"A thing of beauty. . . . You must read it."—Nadeem Aslam "A shower of pleasures."—Julia O'Faolain "Sophisticated, cosmopolitan and seductive, the novel engages mind and senses alike."—André Naffis-Sahely, The Times Literary Supplement Like his parents, he too spent many hours sending cloud messages to other places, messages of longing for something that he knew existed otherwhere. London, that distant rainy place his father lived in once, is where Mehran finds himself after leaving Karachi in his teens. And it is there that his adult life unfolds: he discovers the joys of poetry, faces the trials of love and work, and spends his dreaming hours "sending cloud messages to other places," hoping, one day, to tell his own story. A feeling of not quite belonging anywhere pursues Mehran as he travels to Italy, India, and Pakistan. But the relationships he forms—with wounded, passionate Marvi, volatile Marco, and the enigmatic Riccarda—and his power of recollection finally bring him some sense, however fleeting, of home. Aamer Hussein was born in Karachi in 1955 and moved to London in his teens. He lectures at the University of Southampton and the Institute of English Studies and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His novella Another Gulmohar Tree was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Europe and South Asia 2010.

This Other Salt

This Other Salt
Author: Hussein Aamer
Publisher: Saqi
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2014-05-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0863567940

Betrayal, bereavement, exile, belonging - these are the themes that resonate throughout This Other Salt. A writer torn between two loves looks for his lost words in the gap between memory, mourning and desire; a poet revenges herself on her faithless lover by turning their romance into a legend of biblical proportions; and a teenage boy's life uncannily begins to resemble the role he plays in a school operetta ...Combining satire, legend, poetry, history and memoir, the linked stories of This Other Salt reveal an author of uncommon talent at the height of his craft.

How I Became a Tree

How I Became a Tree
Author: Sumana Roy
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2021-08-31
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 030026268X

An exquisite, lovingly crafted meditation on plants, trees, and our place in the natural world, in the tradition of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek “I was tired of speed. I wanted to live tree time.” So writes Sumana Roy at the start of How I Became a Tree, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world. Drawn to trees’ wisdom, their nonviolent way of being, their ability to cope with loneliness and pain, Roy movingly explores the lessons that writers, painters, photographers, scientists, and spiritual figures have gleaned through their engagement with trees—from Rabindranath Tagore to Tomas Tranströmer, Ovid to Octavio Paz, William Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood. Her stunning meditations on forests, plant life, time, self, and the exhaustion of being human evoke the spacious, relaxed rhythms of the trees themselves. Hailed upon its original publication in India as “a love song to plants and trees” and “an ode toall that is unnoticed, ill, neglected, and yet resilient,” How I Became a Tree blends literary history, theology, philosophy, botany, and more, and ultimately prompts readers to slow down and to imagine a reenchanted world in which humans live more like trees.

Land of Smoke

Land of Smoke
Author: Sara Gallardo
Publisher: Pushkin Press Classics
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2023-09-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 180533090X

"Land of Smoke is one of my favourite books by one of my favourite Argentinian authors." – Samanta Schweblin, author of Seven Empty Houses Dazzling, hallucinatory short stories by a rediscovered Argentinian contemporary of García Márquez, whose groundbreaking novel January is being published in English for the first time Resplendent with otherworldly imagery and beguiling prose, Land of Smoke presents a uniquely compelling voice in Latin American literature. An old man wakes up one morning to find that his beloved garden, the envy of all his neighbours, is floating away with him on board. A young woman moves to Buenos Aires, bringing with her a replacement head. A meek German missionary leaves Paraguay for the Pampas, completely unprepared for what he will encounter there. Dazzling and hallucinatory, the stories collected here recall the masters of magical realism ­– but with Gallardo’s distinctive, idiosyncratic slant.

The Lady from Tel Aviv

The Lady from Tel Aviv
Author: Raba'i al-Madhoun
Publisher: Saqi
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2013-07-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1846591228

In the economy class of a plane, the lives of two passengers intersect: Walid, a Palestinian writer, is returning to Gaza for the first time in thirty-eight years; Dana, an Israeli actress, is on her way back to Tel Aviv. As the night sky hurtles past, what each confides and conceals will expose the chasm between them in the land they both call home. Walid soon discovers that Gaza has changed beyond all recognition. Yet through the haze of checkpoints and lives lived across borders, he finds a message from Dana that will change the course of his life. The Lady from Tel Aviv is a powerful and poetic story of love, loss and the desire to belong. The Lady from Tel Aviv will take you to the height of reading pleasure' Elias Khoury Al-Madhoun brings Gaza to life vividly through his characters and his ability to acknowledge the absurd within the tragic.' Selma Dabbagh

Human Matter

Human Matter
Author: Rodrigo Rey Rosa
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2019-05-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1477316469

More than a decade ago, novelist Rodrigo Rey Rosa made his first visit to the Historical Archive of the Guatemala National Police, where millions of previously hidden records were being cataloged, scanned, and eventually published online. Bringing to light detailed evidence of crimes against humanity, the Archive Recovery Project inspired Rey Rosa to craft a meta-novel that weaves the language of arrest records and surveillance reports with the contemporary journal entries of a novelist (named Rodrigo) who is attempting to synthesize the stories of political activists, indigenous people, and other women and men who became ensnared in a deadly web of state-sponsored terrorism. When Rodrigo's access to the archive is suspended, he proceeds to the General Archives of Central America and the Library of Congress, also collaborating with the son of the Identification Bureau's former head in a relentless pursuit of understanding. Reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño's finely honed masterworks, Human Matter is both a tour de force of fiction and a sobering meditation on the realities of collective memory, raising timely questions about how our history is recorded and retold. Originally published in Spanish in 2009, its success demanded a subsequent publication in June of 2017.

Cities and Canopies

Cities and Canopies
Author: Harini Nagendra
Publisher: Viking
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2019-05
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780670091218

Native and imported, sacred and ordinary, culinary and floral, favourites of various kings and commoners over the centuries, trees are the most visible signs of nature in cities, fundamentally shaping their identities. Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth, coming as they do from different parts of the world, brought in by various local and colonial rulers. From the tree planted by Sarojini Naidu at Dehradun's clock tower to those planted by Sher Shah Suri and Jahangir on Grand Trunk Road, trees in India have served, above all, as memory keepers. They are our roots: their trunks our pillars, their bark our texture, and their branches our shade. Trees are nature's own museums. Drawing on extensive research, Cities and Canopies is a book about both the specific and the general aspects of these gentle life-giving creatures.

Ambiguity Machines

Ambiguity Machines
Author: Vandana Singh
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1618731424

Philip K. Dick Award finalist Praise for Vandana Singh: “A most promising and original young writer.”—Ursula K. Le Guin “Lovely! What a pleasure this book is . . . full of warmth, compassion, affection, high comedy and low.”—Molly Gloss, author of The Hearts of Horses “Vandana Singh’s radiant protagonist is a planet unto herself.”—Village Voice “Sweeping starscapes and daring cosmology that make Singh a worthy heir to Cordwainer Smith and Arthur C. Clarke.”—Chris Moriarty, Fantasy & Science Fiction “I’m looking forward to the collection . . . everything I’ve read has impressed me—the past and future visions in ‘Delhi’, the intensity of ‘Thirst’, the feeling of escape at the end of ‘The Tetrahedron’...” —Niall Harrison, Vector (British Science Fiction Association) “...the first writer of Indian origin to make a serious mark in the SF world ... she writes with such a beguiling touch of the strange.” —Nilanjana Roy, Business Standard In her first North American collection, Vandana Singh’s deep humanism interplays with her scientific background in stories that explore and celebrate this world and others and characters who are trying to make sense of the people they meet, what they see, and the challenges they face. An eleventh century poet wakes to find he is as an artificially intelligent companion on a starship. A woman of no account has the ability to look into the past. In "Requiem," a major new novella, a woman goes to Alaska to try and make sense of her aunt’s disappearance. Singh's stories have been performed on BBC radio, been finalists for the British SF Association award, selected for the Tiptree award honor list, and oft reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies. Her dives deep into the vast strangeness of the universe without and within and with her unblinking clear vision she explores the ways we move through space and time: together, yet always apart.

Thus Were Their Faces

Thus Were Their Faces
Author: Silvina Ocampo
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-01-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1590177673

An NYRB Classics Original Thus Were Their Faces offers a comprehensive selection of the short fiction of Silvina Ocampo, undoubtedly one of the twentieth century’s great masters of the story and the novella. Here are tales of doubles and impostors, angels and demons, a marble statue of a winged horse that speaks, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, a lapdog who records the dreams of an old woman, a suicidal romance, and much else that is incredible, mad, sublime, and delicious. Italo Calvino has written that no other writer “better captures the magic inside everyday rituals, the forbidden or hidden face that our mirrors don’t show us.” Jorge Luis Borges flatly declared, “Silvina Ocampo is one of our best writers. Her stories have no equal in our literature.” Dark, gothic, fantastic, and grotesque, these haunting stories are among the world’s most individual and finest.