My short story Not Made For Northern Weather has been published on the Mod-Doom-Magazine website. You can read it here: Not Made For Northern Weather
Saturday 30 June 2012
Thursday 28 June 2012
The Village by Nikita Lalwani
My review of The Village is up on Bookmunch.
'...There are the obvious themes of inequality and corruption that are rife in India and the sensationalist culture of British television, but there is also the theme of an outsider, someone who doesn’t quite belong to either of the cultures, and is not fully accepted by either. ‘I resemble everyone but myself…’ starts the novel with an extract from a poem Self-Portrait by A.K. Ramanujan. Ray looks like the villagers, she dresses like her English co-workers. She portrays herself as a ‘veg’ – a choice for the upper classes in India – until we find out about her secret rendezvous with chicken at a local curry house...' Read more here
'...There are the obvious themes of inequality and corruption that are rife in India and the sensationalist culture of British television, but there is also the theme of an outsider, someone who doesn’t quite belong to either of the cultures, and is not fully accepted by either. ‘I resemble everyone but myself…’ starts the novel with an extract from a poem Self-Portrait by A.K. Ramanujan. Ray looks like the villagers, she dresses like her English co-workers. She portrays herself as a ‘veg’ – a choice for the upper classes in India – until we find out about her secret rendezvous with chicken at a local curry house...' Read more here
Saturday 2 June 2012
Once You Break A Knuckle by D.W.Wilson
D.W. Wilson's first story collection was published recently by Bloomsbury and what a great read it is for all short story lovers! After reading so many novels one after another it was fascinating to see just how playful and intricate short story collections can be. When I was a child and studying Piano, my teacher would always give me something called Variations to play. Any musician knows what they are - variations of one theme, executed in different styles, sometimes barely recognisable from one another but always exploring the same idea. As I read Wilson's collection, I had a similar experience of playing with the same idea, looking at it from a different perspective.
Short story collections appeal to our ability to fill in the missing pieces through our imagination. They don't always explain everything, and that looseness is what I love most about them. Some said that Once You Break A Knuckle is a male collection, along the lines of 'Man hunt, man bring food, man fight'. Maybe it is, but it is so refreshing to see those very macho men be sometimes so gentle, so unsure of themselves, so human.
Read my full review on Bookmunch
Short story collections appeal to our ability to fill in the missing pieces through our imagination. They don't always explain everything, and that looseness is what I love most about them. Some said that Once You Break A Knuckle is a male collection, along the lines of 'Man hunt, man bring food, man fight'. Maybe it is, but it is so refreshing to see those very macho men be sometimes so gentle, so unsure of themselves, so human.
Read my full review on Bookmunch
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