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History's Angel
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Description
From the Man Asian Literary Prize-longlisted author, the story of a middle-aged man in contemporary India discovering that neither his life nor his country are as stable as he thought.
Alif is a middle-aged, mild-mannered history teacher, living in contemporary Delhi, at a time when Muslims in India are seen either as hapless victims or live threats. Though his life's passion is the history he teaches, it's the present that presses down on him: his wife is set on a bigger house and a better car while trying to ace her MBA exams; his teenage son wants to quit school to get rich; his supercilious colleagues are suspicious of a Muslim teaching India's history; and his old friend Ganesh has just reconnected with a childhood sweetheart with whom Alif was always rather enamored himself.
And then the unthinkable happens. While Alif is leading a school field trip, a student goads him and, in a fit of anger, Alif twists his ear. His job suddenly on the line, Alif finds his life rapidly descending into chaos.
Meanwhile, his home city, too, darkens under the spreading shadow of violence. In this darkly funny, sharply observed and deeply moving novel, Anjum Hasan deftly and delicately explores the force and the consequences of remembering your people's history in an increasingly indifferent milieu.
Product details
| Published | Jul 18 2023 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 288 |
| ISBN | 9781639730407 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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A wonderful Delhi novel for our times, a Shahr-e-Ashob of the new India. History's Angel is eloquent, brave, elegaic and ultimately, heartbreaking. This remarkable novel reminded me of both of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi and Anita Desai's In Custody, and confirms Anjum Hasan as one of our finest and most important writers
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
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Poignant ... An unsettling, piercingly intimate portrait of the rough birth of Modi's new India
FINANCIAL TIMES
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A beautiful novel exploring tensions in modern India ... timely and elegiac
OBSERVER
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Hasan grants this hero such a complete inner life - and surrounds him with such finely drawn characters - that the very air he breathes seems dense with thoughts and longings
WALL STREET JOURNAL
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An extraordinary tale of an ordinary Muslim ... Hasan is cannily observant, a sophisticated writer with a wry and subtle sense of humour, with which she highlights the ridiculousness and futility of seemingly ordinary milieus, while never detracting from the increasing alienation of a community
TRIBUNE INDIA
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Poignant and thought-provoking…deftly highlights the power of ideas
NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS

























