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Reviews

Praise for The Good Muslim

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"This is a quietly confident novel that shows no strain of critical expectation, and all the narrative and poetic skill of her debut."

- Arifa Akbar, independent

 

"Powerful and ambitions, The Good Muslim more than fulfils the promises of Tahmima Anam's celebrated debut, A Golden Age."

- Aamer hussein, Guardian

 

"A fascinating, intense and complex book."

- The Lady

 

"The style is so easy, that of a masterful realist unafraid to capture chaos and crisis ... This work confirms Anam as one of our most important novelists."

- Ophelia Field, Sunday Telegraph

 

"The Good Muslim provides penetrating meditations on faith, war, linguistic and class hegemony, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and love."

- Times Literary Supplement

 

"In this book of searing beauty, Tahmima Anam shows us a family searching for ways to navigate through the aftermath of war; in the process she takes us on an unforgettable journey through a young nation trying to define itself."

- Kamila Shamsie, author of Burnt Shadows

 

"What a superb novel. Its delicacy and power and breadth -- the way its compassion and grief keep complicating its anger -- I read it with heart in mouth."

- Helen Garner, author of The Spare Room

 

"Tahmima Anam's unflinching examination of the agonies of post-colonial nation-building sets the intimacy of personal life against a backdrop of national and religious conflict. Delicate, heart-wrenching and poetic, this is a novel of great poise and power."

- Tash Aw, author of The Harmony Silk Factory and Map of the Invisible

 

Praise for A Golden Age

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'Tahmima Anam's startlingly accomplished and gripping novel describes not only the tumult of a great historical event… but also the small but heroic struggles of individuals living in the shadow of revolution and war'

- Pankaj Mishra

 

"I couldn't tear myself away from A Golden Age...the authenticity shines through Anam's beautiful, simple prose."

- Martha Kearney, Harper's Bazaar

 

"There is a powerful feeling of tension as we wait to see how [the] story of domestic loss will work its way into the narrative of civil war, and when it does the result is heart-shattering."

- Kamila Shamsie, Guardian Review

 

'A Golden Age is a stunning debut."

- Clemency Burton-Hill, Observer

 

'The book opens with a prescient quote from the Bengali poet Shamsur Rahman: "Freedom, you are an arbour in the garden, the koel's song, glistening leaves on banyan trees, my notebook of poetry, to scribble as I please." A Golden Age pays tribute, with sensitivity and restrained passion, to those who fought for one such arbour: a country to call home."

- Christian House, Independent on SundaY

 

"A Golden Age copes with "bone-breaking grief" via stylistic grace; it does not buckle beneath the weight of its material, but with tight narrative vertebrae moves through the months of a single year in prose of a beautiful sparsity, as if it knows time is precious and it must choose what to salvage from the flotsam and jetsam of history."

- Anita Sethi, IndependenT

 

"The book blossoms into a real page-turner, with a bravura, heart-stopping ending."

- David Robson, Telegraph

Articles

In Celebration of Bangladesh's
40th Anniversary

Bangladesh at the crossroads
Tahmima Anam, Financial Times

Happy 40th Birthday, Bangladesh
Tahmima Anam, The Guardian

Rich Mix celebrates the 40th anniversary with a series of plays inspired by A Golden Age