Praise for The Good Muslim
"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
'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."
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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."
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Anita Sethi, IndependenT
"The book blossoms into a real page-turner, with a
bravura, heart-stopping ending."
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David Robson, Telegraph