J.K Rowling, Dan Brown and Stephen King are all household names in the Western world, but who are they in the East? We take a look at some critically acclaimed writers from South Asia that are growing in prominence
2009-03-16
PAKISTAN: Mohsin Hamid - 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'
Born in 1971 in Lahore, Pakistan, Mohsin Hamid spent part of his childhood in the United States from the age of 3 to 9, while his father was enrolled in a PhD program at Stanford University. Hamid went on to graduate from Princeton University in 1993, and then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1997. Finding law boring, the British Pakistani author went on to work as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in New York City before moving back to Pakistan and working as a freelance journalist in his hometown Lahore. Now living in London, Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke (2000), told the story of an ex-banker and heroin addict in contemporary Lahore. Critically acclaimed, it became a cult hit in Pakistan, where it was made into a telefilm.
'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' takes place during the course of a single evening in an outdoor Lahore cafe, where a bearded Pakistani man called Changez (the Urdu name for Genghis) tells a nervous American stranger about his love affair with, and eventual abandonment of, America.
INDIA: Arundhati Roy - 'The God of Small Things'
The first Indian citizen to win the prestigious booker prize in 1997, Arundhati Roy was born from a Keralite Syrian Christian mother, a women's rights activist and a Bengali father, a tea planter. The Indian writer and activist went on to study architecture in New Delhi, after which having already been married before she later went on to meet her second husband, filmmaker Pradip Krishen, in 1984. Now in her late-30s, living in Delhi, Arundhati Roy grew up in Kerala, in which her award winning novel "The God of Small Things" is set.
'The God of Small Things' is a story about the childhood experiences of a pair of fraternal twins who become victims of circumstance. The book is a description of how the small things in life build up, translate into people's behavior and affect their lives.
BANGLADESH: Tahmima Anam - 'A Golden Age'
Tahmima Anam was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1975. She attended Harvard University, where she earned a PhD in Social Anthropology in 2005. Although she was raised in Paris, New York City, and Bangkok, she maintains close ties with Bangladesh, and her father, Mahfuz Anam, the editor and publisher of The Daily Star (Bangladesh), Bangladesh's most prominent English newspaper. Tahmima's writing has been published in Granta Magazine and The New Statesman. She presently lives in West Hampstead, London.
'A Golden Age' is a story of passion and revolution, of hope, faith and unexpected heroism. In the chaos of this era, everyone - from student protesters to the country's leaders, from rickshaw'wallahs to the army's soldiers - must make choices. And as she struggles to keep her family safe, young widow Rehana Haque is forced to face a heartbreaking dilemma.
SRI LANKA: Michael Ondaatje - 'Divisadero'
Better known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, which was adapted into an Academy-Award winning film, The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka. Moving to England with his mother in 1954, Ondaatje relocated to Canada in 1962. Although he is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje's work has also encompassed autobiography, poetry and film.
'Divisadero' centres on a single father and his children: Anna, his natural daughter; Claire, adopted as a baby when Anna was born; and Cooper, who was taken in "to stay and work on the family farm", at the age of four when orphaned. Living in Northern California, Anna and Claire are treated almost as twins, while Cooper is treated more as "a hired hand". Anna begins a sexual relationship with Cooper however an incident of violence tears the family apart.
