Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters
Following on from the much acclaimed novels Such
a Long Journey (1991) and A Fine Balance (1995), Rohinton
Mistry offers in Family Matters a third masterly novel. It definitively
establishes this Bombay-born Toronto immigrant as one of the outstanding
writers in English today. This book takes us to Bombay in the mid-1990s
where a once-fine city in the process of deterioration is mirrored in
the physical situation of Nariman Vakeel, a seventy-nine year-old Parsi
widower and the patriarch of a small discordant family. Rohinton Mistry's
mastery is such that, in the words of John Donne, "One little room becomes
an everywhere." In Mistry's case it is a two-room apartment; it is there
that he finds and reveals a world of meaning in small human interactions.
This is a warm, wise, and beautifully paced novel in which humor and
compassion help us all make sense of the world in which we live.
Read a review by
Peter J. Coughlan.
Family Matters is available from the following
publishers:
Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, UK
Faber and Faber, UK, 2002
Hdb ISBN 0571194273
Canada
McClelland & Stewart, Canada, 2002
Hdb ISBN 0771061277
Hong Kong, USA
Alfred A. Knopf, USA, 2002
Hdb ISBN 0375403736
India
Faber and Faber, India, 2002
Pbk ISBN 0143028499
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Pascal Khoo Thwe, From the Land of Green
Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey
This autobiographical account is, by any measure,
extraordinary and deeply moving. It tells of a young man's upbringing
in a remote village as a member of the Padaung hill tribe in Burma and
his subsequent journey from his strife-torn country through Thailand
to Europe. The first member of his community ever to study English at
Mandalay University, the regime's oppression drove him into the jungle
where he became a guerilla fighter. A letter sent by him to a Cambridge
professor he had earlier met in Mandalay not only reached the other
side of the world, but resulted in his being rescued from the jungle
and enrolling to study English at Cambridge University. Hauntingly and
poetically written, this book recounts Pascal Khoo Thwe's journey to
freedom despite almost unimaginable odds. John Casey, the Cambridge
don who helped rescue Pascal, describes it as "an astonishing, thrilling
and true story."
Read a review by
James D. Rosenthal.
From the Land of Green Ghosts is available from
the following publishers:
Hong Kong, UK
HarperCollins UK, 2002
Hdb ISBN 0007116810
Canada, Hong Kong, USA
HarperCollins USA, 2002
Hdb ISBN 0060505222
Australia, New Zealand
HarperCollins Australia, 2002
Pbk ISBN 0007142269
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