Tahmima Anam
Bangladeshi-born Tahmima Anam’s debut novel, A Golden Age, explores family life during the Bangladesh War of Independence and was the Best First Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. The Independent’s Anita Sethi says the novel “does not buckle under the weight of its material, but with tight narrative vertebrae moves through the months of a single year in prose of a beautiful sparsity.”
Inspired by her parents, who were freedom fighters during the civil unrest, A Golden Age is set in East Pakistan, 1971. Tahmima Anam’s narrative considers one woman’s experience as the nation moves towards civil war - a mother who strives to keep her family safe whilst chaos erupts around her. Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra is a fan and says, “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.”
Raised in Paris, New York and Bangkok, Tahmima was educated at Mount Hollyoke College and Harvard University, taking a PhD in Social Anthropology in 2005 and later earning an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway University. However, she maintained a close relationship with Bangladesh, where her father, Mahfuz Anam, edits The Daily Star - the country’s most prominent English newspaper.
Tahmima also writes for The New Statesman and has been published in Granta Magazine. She currently lives, works and writes in London.
www.tahmima.com
“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.”
The Guardian
Links:
- BBC News story on events inspiring Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age
- Tahmima Anam interviewed on BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour
- Article in the Guardian on A Golden Age
Video:
Tahmima Anam talks about her novel A Golden Age:
