A very angry bus driver, abandoned by his wife and going nowhere in his career; a sanctimonious conductor; a hijra, or eunuch, a remnant of India's Muslim glory days; a nervous, half-Indian businessman clutching a briefcase-full of cash; a right-wing Hindu matriarch; a young boy returning to his village after robbing his employer . . . They meet – and witness a tragic event – only because they are all travelling on the same bus, in the same direction, on the same day. With exceptional poise and beguiling simplicity, Khair introduces a range of voices, thoughts, ideas and identities, allowing each individual’s story to unfold gradually. ‘A novel that reflects deeply into the nature and circumstances of human mobility in our modern, unforgiving world’ Siddhartha Deb, Outlook ‘There is much to enjoy here . . . The twist at the end is hilarious. Khair’s talent is as a miniaturist’ Fiona Hook, The Times ‘It’s a fine work: short, sweet and brutal’ James Smart, Sunday Herald ‘A lyrical journey through small-town India’ Independent ‘[The Bus Stopped] allows stories to emerge with immediacy and leisure, with abrupt shafts of humour’ Guardian
Xenophobia, the fear or dislike of strangers, can be seen throughout the course of history in the form of communal riots, racist attacks, religious hatred, and genocide. HinduMuslim riots in India, SinhaleseTamil tensions in Sri Lanka, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, purging of Shias and Sunnis in Iraq and Syria, skinheads attacking immigrants, and the Jewish holocaust in Europe are a few examples. In The New Xenophobia, Tabish Khair studies this fear in a historical, philosophical, and socio-economic context. Tracing the changes in xenophobic thinking over the past three decades, he examines the unexplored relationship of xenophobia with power and capitalism and shows how changes in capitalism have altered the image of the stranger. Through his study, Khair provides new insights into racism and slavery, and fresh perspectives on the rise of ethnic, cultural, and religious politics in todays age of globalization.
High-school best friends Ameena and Jamilla couldn’t be more different: while one smokes cigarettes in their school playground, the other is a member of her mosque’s discussion group in suburban Yorkshire. When heartbreak and doubt leave Ameena bereft and alone, she turns to Jamilla’s beloved Allah for solace and purpose. It is then that both girls find themselves entranced by a powerful Internet preacher—Hejjiye, a woman running an orphanage home in support of the men fighting in the name of jihad. Leaving their families and country behind, they run to join the Islamic State in Syria to serve a cause they unquestioningly believe in. However, things begin to change for the worse once Ameena marries Hassan, a jihadi leader, and suddenly Jamilla begins to see the world that she left everything for differently. Getting out is almost impossible, but there is one way. Will the girls choose a path which might change their lives beyond recognition? Heart-wrenching, masterful and stunningly powerful, Jihadi Jane paints a vivid picture of militant-brides operating around the world and the terrifying cost of religious fanaticism.
A collection of other stories from shining India—those not often told. The short story “Namaste Trump” starts in a deceptive domestic setting, where a servant from the hinterlands is patronized and exploited by an upwardly mobile urban family. But as the nation celebrates Trump’s visit and copes with the pandemic, it ends up becoming a prophecy of endless haunting. This sets the agenda for a series of stories that delve into fracturing or broken lives in small-town India over the past fifty years. In the novella-length “Night of Happiness,” pragmatic entrepreneur Anil Mehrotra has set up his thriving business empire with the help of his lieutenant, Ahmed, an older man who is different in more ways than one. Quiet and undemanding, Ahmed talks in aphorisms; bothers no one; and always gets the job done. But when one stormy night, Mehrotra discovers an aspect to Ahmed that defies all reason, he is forced to find out more about his trusted aide. What will he discover: madness or something worse? In a series of three linked stories, “The Corridor,” “The Ubiquity of Riots” and “Elopement,” Khair traces, through the eyes of an adolescent, the tensions of living as a liberal Muslim in India in the 1970s and 1980s, tensions that isolate families, break friendships, and point to the violence to come. The narrator of these stories, now a busy professional, returns in the third person in another story, “Olden Friends are Golden,” about belonging and exclusion on WhatsApp. Then there is “Scam,” a flippantly narrated story about a crime that can only be comprehended as a scam perpetuated by the victim, and in “Shadow of a Story” violence returns to a village family in an unimaginable shape. “The Thing with Feathers” is perhaps about hope, but it is hope beyond despair, hope perhaps gone mad: or, is all hope mad now? Finally, “The Last Installment” narrates two farmers, a father and a son, in a village of North India, caught in a corporate vice: the breathless sentences of the story making the reader sense the desperation of the central character as he finally fights to breathe, to live. By turns poetic, chilling, and heartbreaking, ranging from understated realism to gothic terror, this is a book of stories about precarious lives in a world without tolerance. Praise for Tabish Khair “Ingenious and mischievous …” – The New Yorker “Khair writes brilliantly ... Unmissable …” – The Times “Irreverent, intelligent, and explosive.” – The Independent “For a book so concise and witty, it is also surprisingly textured …” – The New Republic “The picture that emerges may sear your soul much like your all-time favorite film.” – India Today “Intelligent and argumentative …” – London Review of Books
Acclaimed novelist and academic Tabish Khair argues that literature as a distinct mode of thinking can counteract fundamentalism. Literature is a mode of thinking, stories being one of the oldest thinking 'devices' known to humankind. The ways in which literature enables us to think are distinctive and necessary, because of the relationships between its material ('language') and its subject matter ('reality'). Although present in oral literature, these relationships are exposed in their full complexity with the rise of literature as a distinct form of writing. Literature Against Fundamentalism argues that literature enables us to engage with reality in language and language in reality, where both are mutually constitutive, constantly changing, and partly elusive. Tabish Khair defines this mode of engagement as essentially an agnostic one, resistant to simple dogma. Hence, literature can provide an antidote to fundamentalism. Khair argues that reading literature as literature--and not just as material for aesthetic, sociological, political, and other theoretical discourses--is essential for humanity. In the process, he offers a radical re-definition of literature, an illuminating engagement with religion and fundamentalism, a revaluation of the relationship between the sciences and humanities, and, finally, a call to literature as in 'a call to arms'.
Man of Glass is the first collection of poems by Tabish Khair in a decade, following the critically acclaimed Where Parallel Lines Meet (2000). In the three sections of this new collection, Khair draws upon three writers from across centuries, cultures, literary genres and languages: Kalidasa and his fifth-century Sanskrit play The Recognition of Shakuntala, Asadullah Khan Ghalib and his early nineteenth-century Urdu ghazals, and H.C. Andersen and his Danish 'fairy tales'. All three are united not only by Khair's chosen language of creativity, English, but also by a concern with reflecting about life and loss, identity and indoctrination, humanity and divinity, and the nature of things and being. Drawing subtly upon the past, Khair engages powerfully and movingly with many issues and events, particular and perennial, of vital concern to the reader today: immigration, Afghanistan, terror, love, loss, death, human duplicity, faith, prejudice, the Iraq War, genocide...
Smart, funny, and wonderfully irreverent'-Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist Funny and sad, satirical and humane, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position tells the interlinked stories of three unforgettable men -the flamboyant Ravi, the fundamentalist Karim and the unnamed and pragmatic Pakistani narrator -whose trajectories cross in Denmark. As the unnamed narrator copes with his divorce, and Ravi, despite his exterior of sceptical flamboyance falls deeply in love with a beautiful woman who is incapable of responding in kind, Karim-their landlord-goes on with his job as a cab-driver and his regular Friday Quran sessions. But is he going on with something else? Who is Karim? Why does he disappear suddenly at times or receive mysterious phone calls? When a 'terrorist attack' takes place in town, all three men find themselves embroiled in doubt, suspicion and, perhaps, danger. An acerbic commentary on the times, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position is also a bittersweet, spell-binding novel about love and life today.
A GRIPPING NOVEL THAT COMMENTS MOVINGLY ON OUR LIVES TODAY. IT BRILLIANTLY ENGAGES PREJUDICES AND PRECONCEPTIONS AND TURNS THEM UPSIDE DOWN. ?A novel about friendship, faith, and alienation, Just Another Jihadi Jane tells the tale of Islamist radicalization from the inside. Two children of Muslim immigrants in England’s industrial north—thoughtful Jamilla and rebellious Ameena—become best friends, and find in religion and social media a community as welcoming and encouraging as their public education is estranging. After Jamilla’s father dies and her brother marries, the two girls leave England and join the Islamist cause in Syria. The intellectual and emotional poverty as well as the violence they find there creates a story as gripping as it is heart-wrenching. As did All Quiet on the Western Front, Tabish Khair’s novel reminds a new generation that heroism and sacrifice are not limited to one side in a conflict, and that the first victims of a murderous regime are those who live within it.
Acclaimed novelist and academic Tabish Khair argues that literature as a distinct mode of thinking can counteract fundamentalism. Literature is a mode of thinking, stories being one of the oldest thinking 'devices' known to humankind. The ways in which literature enables us to think are distinctive and necessary, because of the relationships between its material ('language') and its subject matter ('reality'). Although present in oral literature, these relationships are exposed in their full complexity with the rise of literature as a distinct form of writing. Literature Against Fundamentalism argues that literature enables us to engage with reality in language and language in reality, where both are mutually constitutive, constantly changing, and partly elusive. Tabish Khair defines this mode of engagement as essentially an agnostic one, resistant to simple dogma. Hence, literature can provide an antidote to fundamentalism. Khair argues that reading literature as literature--and not just as material for aesthetic, sociological, political, and other theoretical discourses--is essential for humanity. In the process, he offers a radical re-definition of literature, an illuminating engagement with religion and fundamentalism, a revaluation of the relationship between the sciences and humanities, and, finally, a call to literature as in 'a call to arms'.
Set primarily in India and spanning the twentieth century, Filming tells a series of stories, including that of one-time prostitute Durga, who is persuaded to give away her young son, Ashok, and that of Saleem, the son of a prostitute and two-times star of the silver screen. As these stories intertwine and overlap, they combine to create a novel that is simultaneously about the small details and the bigger picture, weaving together major historical events – including Partition, the assassination of Gandhi, the rise of photography and the Bombay film industry, and the development of barbed wire – with the everyday moments that make up the fabric of our lives. ‘Its plot, like a Bollywood melodrama, teems with characters and incident’ Guardian ‘Elegantly structured and taut with understated passion, Filming is a brilliant recreation of the lost world of early cinema and the continuing tragedy of religious hatred . . . Its delights as well as its message should find admiring readers everywhere’ Independent ‘Absorbing . . . Filming is distinguished by its ambition, its structural inventiveness and its highly evocative prose’ TLS ‘Underpinning this intriguing novel is a concern for the truth . . . In keeping with Khair’s pertinent and thought-provoking musings on self-deception, its skill lies in making us question our assumptions about what we do and why we do it’ New Statesman
Starting with a re-examination of the role of the colonial/racial Other in mainstream Gothic (colonial) fiction, this book goes on to engage with the problem of narrating the 'subaltern' in the post-colonial context. It engages with the problems of representing 'difference' in lucid conceptual terms, with much attention to primary texts, and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of colonial discourses as well as postcolonialist attempts to 'write back.' While providing rich readings of Conrad, Kipling, Melville, Emily Brontë, Erna Brodber, Jean Rhys and others, it offers new perspectives on Otherness, difference and identity, re-examines the role of emotions in literature, and suggests productive ways of engaging with contemporary global and postcolonial issues.
A subversive, darkly comic novel of a young Indian man's misadventures in Victorian London as the city is gripped by a series of gruesome murders. Shortlisted for the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize, this sly update of the Gothic novel marks the new arrival of a compelling Indian voice in North America.
A HILARIOUS, SATIRICAL NOVEL FROM AWARD-WINNING INDIAN WRITER. Funny and sad, satirical and humane, this novel tells the interlinked stories of three unforgettable men whose trajectories cross in Denmark: the flamboyant Ravi, the fundamentalist Karim, and the unnamed and pragmatic Pakistani narrator. As the unnamed narrator copes with his divorce, and Ravi—despite his exterior of skeptical flamboyance—falls deeply in love with a beautiful woman who is incapable of responding in kind, Karim, their landlord, goes on with his job as a taxi driver and his regular Friday Qur’an sessions. But is he going on with something else? Who is Karim? And why does he disappear suddenly at times or receive mysterious phone calls? When a “terrorist attack” takes place in town, all three men find themselves embroiled in doubt, suspicion, and, perhaps, danger. An acerbic commentary on the times, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position is also a bitter-sweet, spell-binding novel about love and life today.
A very angry bus driver, abandoned by his wife and going nowhere in his career; a sanctimonious conductor; a hijra, or eunuch, a remnant of India's Muslim glory days; a nervous, half-Indian businessman clutching a briefcase-full of cash; a right-wing Hindu matriarch; a young boy returning to his village after robbing his employer . . . They meet – and witness a tragic event – only because they are all travelling on the same bus, in the same direction, on the same day. With exceptional poise and beguiling simplicity, Khair introduces a range of voices, thoughts, ideas and identities, allowing each individual’s story to unfold gradually. ‘A novel that reflects deeply into the nature and circumstances of human mobility in our modern, unforgiving world’ Siddhartha Deb, Outlook ‘There is much to enjoy here . . . The twist at the end is hilarious. Khair’s talent is as a miniaturist’ Fiona Hook, The Times ‘It’s a fine work: short, sweet and brutal’ James Smart, Sunday Herald ‘A lyrical journey through small-town India’ Independent ‘[The Bus Stopped] allows stories to emerge with immediacy and leisure, with abrupt shafts of humour’ Guardian
Pragmatic entrepreneur Anil Mehrotra has set up his thriving business empire with the help of his lieutenant, Ahmed, an older man who is different in more ways than one. Quiet and undemanding, Ahmed talks in aphorisms, bothers no one, and always gets the job done. But when one stormy night, Mehrotra discovers an aspect to Ahmed that defies all reason, he is forced to find out more about his trusted aide. As layers and layers of Ahmed’s history are peeled off, Mehrotra finds himself confronting some deeply unsettling questions. Does Ahmed really have a wife? Does he keep her imprisoned in their flat? Is Ahmed deranged, or is he just making desperate sense of the horrors that afflicted him in the past? By turns poetic, chilling and heartbreaking, Night of Happiness is an unforgettable novel set in a world without tolerance.
The collection includes pilgrimage accounts, which describe a 'national' circuit (as in Lady Nijo's, c. 1280, or Sei Shonagon's, c. 990, accounts) or move across vast regions to places of learning and pilgrimage or to a particular centre of religio-cultural significance (the early Chinese travellers to India in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, the Hajj pilgrimage of Ibn Jubayr in the 12th century, Blyden's Africanist-Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 19th century). These pilgrimage accounts can also taper into other genres: for instance, while ibn Battutah (b. 1304) set out to go to Mecca (which he did), he ended up travelling across 50 countries and dictating what is undoubtedly a travel book in a narrow generic sense rather than the account of a pilgrimage. Other extracts range from the influential medieval travel-geography of al-Idrisi in the 11th century; the global history,
Set primarily in India and spanning the 20th century, 'Filming' tells a series of stories, including that of one-time prostitute Durga, who is persuaded to give away her young son, Ashok, and that of Saleem, the son of a prostitute and two-time star of the silver screen. As these stories intertwine and overlap, they combine to create a novel that is simultaneously about the small details and the bigger picture, weaving together major historical events - including Partition, the assassination of Gandhi, the rise of photography and the Bombay film industry, and the development of barbed wire - with the everyday moments that make up the fabric of our lives.
The collection includes pilgrimage accounts, which describe a 'national' circuit (as in Lady Nijo's, c. 1280, or Sei Shonagon's, c. 990, accounts) or move across vast regions to places of learning and pilgrimage or to a particular centre of religio-cultural significance (the early Chinese travellers to India in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, the Hajj pilgrimage of Ibn Jubayr in the 12th century, Blyden's Africanist-Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 19th century). These pilgrimage accounts can also taper into other genres: for instance, while ibn Battutah (b. 1304) set out to go to Mecca (which he did), he ended up travelling across 50 countries and dictating what is undoubtedly a travel book in a narrow generic sense rather than the account of a pilgrimage. Other extracts range from the influential medieval travel-geography of al-Idrisi in the 11th century; the global history,
In powerfully original rewritings that combine humour and satire with acute social and political commentary, Tabish Khair uses William Shakespeare's sonnets to paint a memorable and moving picture of the world in corona quarantine. This is arguably the first major work of literature to come out of the corona crisis. With iconoclastic humour and intelligence, it runs the readers through a gamut of emotions. It is also a clarion call for change. These 21 sonnets range from initial humorous riffs on the foibles of our age but grow progressively darker and more acerbic, while always playing with Shakespeare's original works. A must-read for our times!Part of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Migrant Workers Centre, Singapore, to support the migrant workers suffering from the Coronavirus pandemic. About the author: TABISH KHAIR is a poet, novelist and critic who was born in Ranchi (Jharkhand) in 1966, and received his school and college education in his hometown, Gaya, in Bihar, India. In the 1990s, he worked in Delhi as a staff reporter for The Times of India, before moving to Denmark, where he is now employed as an associate professor and lives in a village outside Aarhus. His recent novels include How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position (HarperCollins, Interlink and Corsair 2014), Just Another Jihadi Jane (Penguin/Periscope 2016; Interlink 2017) and Night of Happiness (Picador, 2018). His last collection of poems, Man of Glass, was published by HarperCollins in 2010. Translated into various languages, Khair has won or been shortlisted for more than 20 major poetry, fiction and non-fiction prizes in six countries. For further details: https: //www.tabishkhair.co.uk/(Profits from this e-book are being donated by the publisher and author to Migrant Workers Centre, Singapore, helping migrant workers to cope with the current economic crisis complicated by the Novel Coronavirus pandemic
Ce roman donne à comprendre les rouages de la radicalisation, du recrutement et du basculement dans l'extrémisme dans une langue simple, imagée, pleine d'esprit et d'humour – aussi surprenant que cela puisse paraître étant donné la gravité du sujet. Il permet également – chose rare – d'aborder le mal-être des musulmans pratiquants en Europe, face à une société sécularisée. Deux adolescentes, dans une banlieue du nord de l'Angleterre. L'une, Ameena, est délurée, fume des cigarettes et sort avec des garçons, tandis que l'autre, Jamilla, est une fille réservée, musulmane pratiquante, portant le hijab et obéissant à l'autorité paternelle. Une rupture amoureuse laisse Ameena totalement désemparée. Elle se rapproche alors de Jamilla et commence à s'intéresser aux enseignements de la religion. Elles passent toutes deux de plus en plus de temps à la mosquée ; enfermées chez elles, elles regardent des vidéos de prêche sur Youtube et discutent via Internet avec des femmes prônant le djihad. L'une d'elles, Heijye, femme charismatique se disant à la tête d'un orphelinat syrien réservé aux enfants des combattants de Daesh, les convainc de partir pour la rejoindre. À leur arrivée en Syrie, via Istanbul, elles rejoignent l'institution dirigée par Heijye, une vaste bâtisse située à quelques kilomètres d'une ville tenue par Daesh. Bientôt, Ameena est mariée à un djihadiste qu'elle suit dans ses divers déplacements, tandis que Jamilla reste à l'orphelinat où elle mesure peu à peu l'impasse terrible dans laquelle elle se trouve, privée de liberté et confrontée à un monde terriblement plus cruel et hypocrite que celui qu'elle a quitté. Se met alors en place un huis-clos éprouvant, glaçant. Jusqu'au terrible dénouement. Dans ce livre, Tabish Khair déploie avec virtuosité une véritable intensité dramatique, dans une construction originale – la confession de Jamilla à un écrivain qu'elle rencontre à Bali –, laissant à intervalles réguliers le lecteur entrevoir l'issue tragique. Ce roman donne à comprendre les rouages de la radicalisation, du recrutement et du basculement dans l'extrémisme (notamment via les réseaux sociaux) dans une langue simple, imagée, pleine d'esprit et d'humour – aussi surprenant que cela puisse paraître étant donné la gravité du sujet. Il permet également – chose rare – d'aborder le mal-être des musulmans pratiquants en Europe, face à une société sécularisée.
This will help us customize your experience to showcase the most relevant content to your age group
Please select from below
Login
Not registered?
Sign up
Already registered?
Success – Your message will goes here
We'd love to hear from you!
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.