A video review for The Comeback

 A video review by Sayari for The Comeback on Scroll's video channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cqC3o4_sY-A

A new review for The Comeback

Veda Pahurkar writes about The Comeback in the Asian Age:

'What begins as a story of friendship slowly reveals deeper layers of rivalry, regret and the lingering weight of past decisions. Zaidi approaches the narrative with subtlety rather than spectacle. The drama here is not loud or exaggerated; instead, it lies in the emotional spaces between the characters. Through carefully drawn scenes and internal reflections, the novel captures the quiet turbulence that accompanies ambition, the desire to succeed, the fear of being forgotten, and the pride that sometimes blinds people to the consequences of their actions.'

Link: https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-asian-age/20260325/282321096536708?srsltid=AfmBOooKOmqcpULZEatcn_u3CkUHJDQa6Y6OGwZrQ9NfSqtsABVj7eDW

New year, and a new book review

'Annie Zaidi’s The Comeback is about one man’s journey from self-absorption to consideration for others staged as an ode to theatre as an artform. It asks important questions of popularity, selfishness, stoicism and leadership, about life on social media, and about working in cinema, TV and OTT — all of which represent contemporary India. Also thrown in is a bit of the magic of small towns and possible models for theatre to thrive there.'

             - Akankshya Abismruta in the Hindustan Times

Link: HT review of The Comeback

Review of 'Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation' in Cha journal

A new-ish review of my book Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation in Cha journal:


'The plurality inherent in the experience of belonging necessitates a perspective that moves beyond national constructs. While borders impose physical limitations, the sense of belonging is irreducible to a singular or monolithic national identity. The persistent enmity between India and Pakistan has repeatedly forced individuals to define their sense of home in terms of national affiliation, leading to existential questioning of their identities. National belonging, however, cannot supplant the deeper sense of belonging, which transcends borders and walls. Before asking “Where is home?”, one must first grapple with the preceding question: “Where do I belong?” The search for home, in and of itself, signifies dislocation—a condition that has become increasingly acute in contemporary India.

Each essay in the book addresses distinct issues, problematising various aspects of life in modern India. Zaidi’s narrative traverses timescapes, weaving historical contexts with contemporary realities. Rather than offering a definitive answer to what home means, her memoir questions what it means to live in today’s India, a reality that proves more daunting than the book’s length might suggest. Another commendable aspect of the work is its brevity, a stark contrast to the trend of overly lengthy memoirs that often lose focus. Zaidi avoids falling into unproductive digressions, instead delivering a concentrated exploration of longing and memory.'

- Fathima M in Cha. Read the full review here: https://chajournal.blog/2025/01/12/bread/

Reviews for The Comeback

'Annie Zaidi’s new novel, The Comeback, is a delightful journey into the heart of Indian theatre, with a focus on small-town India...' 
- Jahnavi Acharekar in Frontline magazine

Link to review: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/theatre-life-review-the-comeback-annie-zaidi/article69385271.ece


'... economical and absorbing. It contains more than a few touches of broad irony, especially when it comes to the business of art and the way eastern and western dramatic traditions are appropriated by the cognoscenti.'
- Sanjay Sipahimalani in The Hindu

Link to review: https://www.thehindu.com/books/book-review-the-comeback-author-annie-zaidi-theatre-films-friendship-betrayal-drama/article69412332.ece


'Through the story of a somewhat successful actor, Zaidi imagines how corrupting any kind of adulation can be. If being ruthless in the guise of ambition is bad, then being conceited as a natural result of one’s success is even worse.'
- Sayari Debnath in Scroll.in

Link: https://scroll.in/article/1080920/the-comeback-annie-zaidis-short-and-sweet-novel-about-second-chances

'Zaidi gently unfurls several interlocked questions about art, friendship, and the perpetually ugly business of making a living. Is "true" or "honest" art necessarily decoupled from the needs of the marketplace? Is the converse true, then, especially in a vastly inequitable country like India? What does "performance" even mean for someone pathologically incapable of being honest with themselves and their closest friends?... This is an accomplished, compulsively readable short novel that may force you to take a good look at your own dormant friendships.'
- Aditya Mani Jha in the Mint

Link to review: https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/art-and-culture/book-review-annie-zaidi-the-comeback-friendship-stagecraft-11740722742207.html


'The book grapples a lot with the worlds of theatre, cinema, and television; and through this, triggers contemplation on an interesting hierarchy that's right in front of us but never paid heed to - that of the politics of where a play should be performed.'
- Garima Sadhwani in the Financial Express

Link to review: https://www.financialexpress.com/life/lifestyle/the-comeback-by-annie-zaidi-review-returning-to-your-roots/3778064/

'At its core, The Comeback is a meditation on lost dreams, fractured relationships, and the possibility of redemption. With a narrative that is both intimate and expansive, Zaidi masterfully captures the emotional turmoil of betrayal, the quiet resilience of those left behind, and the unexpected ways in which life circles back.'

- Anjali Chauhan in the Deccan Herald

Link to review: https://www.deccanherald.com/features/books/meditation-on-broken-bonds-and-lost-dreams-3456598

'The author’s own training in theatre is evident in how the novel is structured. She sketches the backdrop with an enviable economy of words, then allows the characters to take over. The dialogue is crisp, the characters (including the supporting characters) are well-developed, and the plot moves forward at just the right pace.
- Natasha Ramarathnam in Youth ki Awaaz

Link: https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2025/02/a-story-of-friendship-and-betrayal-set-in-the-theatre-world/ 

'Novelist and playwright Annie Zaidi turns to this trope in her latest, The Comeback, and sets the novel in a milieu that she knows intimately — the world of the theatre. The result is a slim novel that is part parable and part a fairy tale.'

- Shuma Raha in The Asian Age

Link to review: https://www.asianage.com/books/book-review-can-theatre-reunite-offer-redemption-1876623

'What follows, thereafter, is a tale of soured friendships, bruised egos, fluctuating fortunes, starting from scratch, and, of course, drama in every which way. An award-winning dramatist, Zaidi has seen the world of theatre, up-close and up-front, and is clearly partial to it. Her descriptions of rehearsals, the shoe-string budgets, the uncompromising determination to stage quality stuff, make for inspiring reading.

This is a book that many from the world of grease-paint and arc lights will identify with. Others will enjoy a story, well-told.'

- Alpana Chowdhury in The Free Press Journal

Link to review: https://www.freepressjournal.in/lifestyle/book-review-the-comeback-by-annie-zaidi-a-captivating-story-of-ambition-friendship-and-betrayal

'Asghar’s journey, from brokenness to renewal, is rendered with a sensitivity that avoids clichés, making his evolution not just compelling but deeply affecting. His rediscovery of theatre serves as both an artistic and personal revival, showcasing his resilience. The supporting characters—family, friends, and the theatre troupe—enrich the narrative...'

- Namrata in Kitaab

Link to review: https://kitaab.org/2025/03/27/book-review-the-comeback-a-novel-by-annie-zaidi/

'The novel begins on a note of restlessness where the writer deliberately carves a distinct image of John K. and Asghar based on class. It cannot be denied that art, especially in the present time, is heavily tilted towards capitalism and becoming either politically distant or neutral. At the same time, with accessibility, most artists have grown susceptible to policing and fear losing what they possess. In the novel, John K. says something that lands his friend, Asghar in trouble. Zaidi captures the anger of the latter but keeps ‘care’ in the forefront.'

- Kabir Deb in Outlook

Link to review: https://www.outlookindia.com/books/all-the-world-is-a-stage

'The Comeback tells us that relationships can be old and strong, yet, fragile.. It deftly delves into the anxieties of people in the contemporary world and the issues that crop up with fame along with personal egos and social status.'

- Newsbits.in

Link to review: https://newsbits.in/the-comeback-annie-zaidis-novel-on-friendship-and-a-strange-betrayal-charms-the-readers#google_vignette

'Though slim, The Comeback travels a full circle in a consistently engaging story that reads like it could be a lively movie (or a series?). Held up against Zaidi's other books, including the acclaimed Prelude to a Riot and her memoir Bread, Cement, Cactus, The Comeback can seem lightweight, but it is warm and large-hearted.'

- Neha Bhatt in India Today

Link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/books-by-annie-zaidi-of-ties-that-bind/ar-AA1GcIIf

'Zaidi approaches the narrative with subtlety rather than spectacle. The drama here is not loud or exaggerated; instead, it lies in the emotional spaces between the characters. Through carefully drawn scenes and internal reflections, the novel captures the quiet turbulence that accompanies ambition, the desire to succeed, the fear of being forgotten, and the pride that sometimes blinds people to the consequences of their actions.'

- Veda Pahurkar in the Asian Age (Mar 25th, 2026):

Link: https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-asian-age/20260325/282321096536708?srsltid=AfmBOooKOmqcpULZEatcn_u3CkUHJDQa6Y6OGwZrQ9NfSqtsABVj7eDW

A first review for The Comeback in Youth ki Awaaz:

 A first review for The Comeback in Youth ki Awaaz: 

'The entire novel is built on the perceived hierarchy of the performing arts, and the author subtly makes a point about how many of the attempts at decolonisation end up magnifying the same systems they were supposed to overthrow. Through Asghar’s stubborn decision to insist on centring his theatre in his hometown, Baansa, the author pays homage to the theatre, which could flourish in smaller towns but is subsumed in an attempt to reach a wider audience. At least in this novel, Asghar is able to resist the temptation to do so!

The blurb promises that The Comeback “is a story of the price of betrayal, friendship and forgiveness, second chances, and the transformative power of art,” and the book certainly lives up to that promise. In this book, Annie Zaidi demonstrates yet again why she is considered one of the finest Indian novelists writing in English today.'

Link: https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2025/02/a-story-of-friendship-and-betrayal-set-in-the-theatre-world/

Some more reviews of Prelude to a Riot

Was very pleasantly surprised to find some new(er?) reviews of my novel Prelude to a Riot. 

One in Countercurrents says: 'Zaidi’s withholding of subterranean dark forces which “it” can unleash with lightning speed and unassailable strength is a narrative masterstroke.'

Link to review: https://countercurrents.org/2021/07/prelude-to-a-riot/

Another in Writersmelon: https://writersmelon.com/book-review-prelude-to-a-riot/

And one more in DURA (the Dundee University Review of the Arts). Glad to see it (although it is mistaken in one thing; it is not the Hindu girl but the Muslim girl, Fareeda, who is tricked/forced into eating pork). Link to review: https://dura-dundee.org.uk/2021/01/15/prelude-to-a-riot/

Link to buy: https://www.thedogearsbookshop.com/shop/books/fiction/historical-fiction/prelude-to-a-riot-hb/

Or, if you must, buy off Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prelude-Riot-Annie-Zaidi/dp/9388292812

Of love as fodder for fiction and a self-concious formal experiment

Is a novel a beautiful thing? What of a novel that is presented as an “outline” for the first draft of a novel that the narrator intends to write? Should the reader approach it as a finished aesthetic product or should it be taken for what it claims to be: a loose skein of ideas and character notes? Rahman Abbas’ On the Other Side is a tricky novel to read partly because it poses these questions even as it sidesteps genre conventions through the device of a narrator who claims to be working on a “bulky novel” based on the diaries of his deceased protagonist, the novelist-teacher Abdus-Salam.

Abdus-Salam is not necessarily a likeable or an admirable character, and the unnamed narrator does not tell us why he (or she) cares about him or his legacy. In many respects, Abdus-Salam is a fairly ordinary man. He chews a spiced-up tobacco mix and teaches at a suburban school while harbouring creative ambitions. While he has complex and conflicting thoughts about religion, in this, too, he is not very different from most people. He veers between opting in occasionally (going to the mosque once in a while, if only out of long-standing habit), to claiming that “God is everyone’s shield”, to doubting god privately even as he fears divine retribution in moments of crisis, such as illness. His amorous adventures, however, do make him an exceptional protagonist, if only because of how long the list of his paramours is, and how he uses them as fodder for fiction.

Read the full review in Frontline magazine: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/rahman-abbas-on-the-other-side-indian-translated-fiction-experimental-writing-review/article68553415.ece

Review: Stories about being Muslim in contemporary India

My review of Tabish Khair's latest collection, Namaste Trump and Other Stories: 

The book’s structure is imaginative, if also unusual. While its contents can be described as split into two broad sections–the novella Night of Happiness, which was published as a standalone in India in 2018, and a set of short stories–it would not be wise to read the novella as distinct from the stories. In fact, it is impossible to read each story as a self-contained whole to the extent that the same characters re-appear in more than one story; the narrative appears to pick up where it had been left off, with a different story inserted in between. 

Why has the author chosen this unusual approach instead of simply writing two or three novellas, and what should we read into the placement of the pieces? To me, it appears that Khair is nudging the reader to look beyond the events of individual stories, to seek out patterns, and to pay attention to the movements of time and shifts of location that the characters undergo. Some characters are semi-rural while others are firmly urban but all are strung together on the twin threads of Phansa, a small town in Bihar, and the experience of being Muslim in contemporary India, be it as protagonist, victim or observer... The horror of violence – past, present or future – repeatedly manifests in these stories in the shape of a paranormal experience. The sympathetic narrator of Night of Happiness must contend with an invisible halwa that leads him to feel “a bony hand” clutching at his heart. 

The titular story, “Namaste Trump” reveals the banal cruelty of a cynical upper-class executive who turns out a domestic worker during the COVID-19 pandemic, an act that has spiritual consequences. “Shadow of a Story” is a proper ghost story where Khair is in his element as a writer of fiction working in academia. Its narrator is a man who takes literature seriously and is able to reconsider positions taken in the context of literary criticism, and reassess his own valourisation of a particular postcolonial aesthetic after an encounter with brute violence in Phansa. Truth appears as a frightening presence in “The Thing with Feathers.” A personal favourite, this is a story about the unravelling of a teacher, Rakesh Sir, who “did things properly, always within limits” but who loses control of his tongue, and thus inadvertently becomes dangerous. The author once again drives us to a junction of reason where the evidence provided by one’s physical senses and simple common sense collides with an intangible, unbelievable world where the rules of our world no longer hold good. 

Through these Phansa-connected stories and their chaotic or uncanny outcomes, Khair reveals to us a landscape where petty cruelty is interlaced with looming threats of violence or destitution, and also with a quiet courage that approaches madness. It is a landscape filled with memorable characters that the reader can carry into, or far beyond, the towns and villages of their own origin. 

Read the full review in Frontline magazine: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-namaste-trump-and-other-stories-tabish-khair-confronts-experience-of-being-muslim-in-contemporary-india/article67729914.ece

Book alert!

Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (Aleph 2023) is just out. This is a new edition of Known Turf (2010), with a fresh Introduction chapter and a lot of footnotes that update the book's information with newer data, which lend it fresh context. 

This book of essays was nominated for the Crossword book prize in the non-fiction category when it first came out, and had a bunch of mostly good reviews when it first came out. It attempts to tell the story of our country in our times, with brief dips and detours into banditry, caste crimes, gender violence, displacement, hunger and malnourishment, faith and identity. All of these are, as I have learnt over the years, interlinked processes. I urge you to buy and read the book. 

Review links from 2010: 

"Annie Zaidi’s collection of essays, Known Turf, is arresting and unforgettable; about realities we prefer didn’t exist. Starvation deaths, female infanticide and communal intolerance step out of the anonymity of statistics to become people like us. They remind us of our defence mechanisms in the face of horror and sorrow; our efforts to stay sane and functional" - Karthika Nair in Tehelka

"Known Turf is a wonderfully engaging example of a puzzling trend in contemporary Indian writing in English. Despite the hype surrounding the novels-with-large-advances, the best writing today is happening in non-fiction." Alok Rai in Outlook

"Tragic and tender and brutal and funny." Known Turf covers a lot of turf.

"At its best, the book combines a reporter’s on-the-spot perception and a writer’s reflection and language to etch interesting, nuanced portraits of that half-mythical being in the throes of constant change: contemporary India. Known Turf is definitely worth reading, and not just for the sake of Gabbar Singh." Tabish Khair in Mint

"...anyone who has braved the railways without a confirmed reservation will get cathartic pleasure reading Zaidi’s graphic account of sitting on the corner of a seat, at a 45 degrees angle, with an RAC (Reservation against cancellation) ticket in a train to Lucknow" Alpana Chowdhury in DNA

"A book like this, written by someone who may once have been just as sheltered as they were, will resonate with Generation iPad in a way that a more world-weary account would bypass entirely." Manjula Padmanabhan in Outlook Traveller

"It’s a rare look into the lives of dacoits minus caricature.  Zaidi’s writing attempts to evoke an understanding of their reality." The Reporter and her Beat in Civil Society

"Among all the issues that Zaidi touches on, I find molestation to be the most moving. Though she puts in a lot of information on the other subjects she chooses, the whole force of her personality comes into play only when she starts speaking of molestation and eve teasing." From here

More reviews here, here, here, here, here, and here.

A review of Moyukh Chatterjee’s Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities

If a government is driven by the need to secure majority mandates, what incentives does it have to secure minority rights? In fact, if all institutions are ultimately answerable to majoritarian sentiments, if the creation of an unyielding majority is a constant political necessity, it stands to reason that the re-creation of minorities is also essential. Moyukh Chatterjee’s Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities addresses this question in direct and rather unsettling ways...

He argues that violence against minorities is not an exceptional event in the Global South, that it is essentially political violence – garbed as religious or ethnic violence – used to construct more or less permanent majorities and minorities. While this book focuses on India, it reminds us that modern Western states like the US and Canada were built on ‘the expulsion and subjugation of Indigenous and Black people’ and that contemporary violence against such racial minorities is ‘not a deviation from modernity but an integral aspect of the making of the modern nation-state itself.’ There is something foundational about antiminority violence and as postcolonial countries have developed into modern democracies, their respective pogroms and ethnic ‘conflicts’ have served to establish dominant racial or religious majorities as stable political majorities. 

Posing the question – ‘What can India tell us about the power of public violence against minorities to act as a catalyst for the creation of a permanent majority?’ – the author attempts to answer it through this book. His title – composing violence – is an attempt to understand ‘how violence persists, motivates, and animates social and political life beyond the scene of horror,’ and to move away from the idea that violence is ‘a breakdown, interruption, and exception,’ to instead describe it as ‘a constitutive force.’ This transformational quality of violence serves as a catalyst for turning Muslims in India into permanent minorities and ‘outsiders’. 

Read the full review here: https://thewire.in/books/book-review-majoritiarian-violence-moyak-chatterjee

 

A review of 'In Your Tongue, I cannot Fit'

This is a difficult book to review in that it does not adhere to any literary format. It includes poetry, but it is not an anthology. It includes art, but it is not an art book. Broadly, the book serves as a document and a testament, a creative intervention on a continuum of silencing. In the photographs of the art installation, where poems were printed and placed on spikes, it is impossible to escape the mental image of heads of rebels placed on pikes though there is no blood in sight. Describing his first reaction to the exhibit, Tripathi says that the “arrogant spikes” appeared as flagpoles and the sheets of paper as white flags. The microphones, he writes, were not meant to be spoken into. Instead, the artist placed speakers in the microphones to amplify the poets’ words.

Gupta’s artwork also includes silhouettes traced from photographs of poets and activists who were arrested or have simply disappeared, and other objects associated with the denial of freedom. In an interview with Tina Marie Monelyon, Gupta says, “Power likes freedom and certainty for itself and not for others,” and goes on to make a connection between those who were killed and those who are viciously trolled online. The intent is the same—to ridicule, to harass, and to distract and confuse all others who might otherwise have been inclined to listen and think. However, as the editors point out in their introduction: “Empires have risen and fallen and national boundaries have changed. But the words of poets have survived.”

Full review here:

https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/crycrycrycry-book-review-for-in-your-tongue-i-cannot-fit-encounters-with-prison-edited-by-shilpa-gupta-salil-tripathi/article66368374.ece

After Sappho: a review

Spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the story introduces the reader to women who rejected factory and homestead and immersed themselves in classical poetry, plays, novels, pamphlets, paintings, dancing. The performers among them responded to contemporary works such as Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Oscar Wilde’s Salome, while others such as Colette, Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf wrote their own novels and plays.

Living in France, Italy, Greece or England, many of these women had privileges associated with a middle- or upper-class background. Apart from one named working-class character—Berthe Cleryrergue, a housekeeper who wrote a memoir about the years she spent working for Natalie Barney—most characters appear to be women of some means. They are able to host and attend salons in Paris or travel across the continent, to Lesbos or Capri. They refuse to slip easily into the robes of obedient wives and mothers, and if they cannot flee, they subvert the norms of heterosexual marriage.

Yet, this is not a novel about privilege though it does draw attention to the nature of privilege through the prism of gender. After all, what privilege does a businessman’s daughter have if her father simply hands her over to her rapist? What does privilege mean if you have no say in the workings of the nation, no matter how educated you are or how ignorant the men who rule against you?

Read the full review here: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-after-sappho-by-selby-wynn-schwartz-sees-women-forging-freedom/article66034902.ece 

Review of C

I've written a long, critical review of the 'C: A Novel'. A short extract and a link to the full review below:

She moves to the more prosaic revelation that she cannot counter a man who says the right things but does not give her what she needs. While other details of space and location do pull the narrative in other directions, it arches back to the question of a relationship that is intense but unfulfilling. Aside from this theme, much of this novel is about the struggle to create. The city and the storyteller want to go ‘go for the kill’, to capture some essential truth. The writer’s self-doubt is projected onto the voice of the city who observes: “Have I chosen the wrong storyteller?”

Most chapters read like a writer’s journal. They describe her determination to make her time abroad add up to something, her experiences in libraries, admiration for Sylvia Plath, and her pondering experiments in writing from a male perspective. Through her struggle to live a creative life and to resolve her complicated relationship, the reader gains insights into the formation of the narrator’s literary self – exposed to seminal literature in at least two languages – as well as to a wounded self, the one that was mocked and knuckle-rapped by teachers, sexually assaulted, romantically involved with ‘scumbags’, and guilty. As the ghost says, “What you’re writing is who you are.”

Link to the review was published in The Beacon: https://www.thebeacon.in/2022/08/30/annie-zaidi-reviews-c-a-novel-by-anupama-raju-a-poets-novel/

City of Incident: Reviews

"We are reminded that the author’s voice, shining through the telling, illuminating the prose, is what keeps the novel vital and alive. While binge-watching leaves us exhausted and glazed-eyed in the wake of a series, when we dive into the quiet, transformative pool of powerful prose, we emerge renewed."

- A review by Devapriya Roy in the Indian Express

"Sight and insight; every episode, and there are twelve interlinked ones, appears at first glance a stand-alone narrative even though the blurb advises us they are interlinked. But the interlinks are subtle and demand of the reader the embrace of that same cinematic gaze that defines the telling of this novel: the reader has to remember that a the plastic bag will reappear as a defining moment in the emotive core of other protagonists inhabiting this city whose own core is defined by the precincts of the railway line at one end and high rise apartments at the other. In between the skywalk on which the dispossessed make their homes as ladies in their clackety-clack heels pass by. For Zaidi, this contrasting scene of poverty and middling affluence is not the site for social realism, breast-beating about the iniquities that plague the city. They are the locations of illusions, of yearnings, and glimmers of redemption from love denied or a life despised."

- A review by Ashoak Upadhyay in The Beacon

"Haruki Murakami once asked, “Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves.” Zaidi posits a painful answer to this question, unflinchingly marking the social divisions that proliferate her web.

Some of these social markers inevitably crisscross – like gender complicating class relations. Zaidi also pays attention to how these divisions are uniquely manifested in the space of a city, which is as merciful as alienating in its bequeathal of anonymity."

- A review of City of Incident by Gayathri Shankar in Scroll.in

"This sense of something just beyond — something nameless that is tantalisingly within one’s grasp, but recedes as soon as one stretches out a hand to it — unites Zaidi’s characters, all of whom labour under different forms of constraint: everyday constraints imposed by class, patriarchy, age."

- A review by Gautam Bhatia in The Hindu

"City of Incident captures the aspirations and losses of a bunch of people irrespective of their socio-economic status—there’s a trinket seller, a bank employee, a policeman, a security guard, etcetera. Most of them are unhappy in their own ways, some more than the other. As an author, Zaidi doesn’t provide her characters with many dialogues. She sets the stage simply by establishing the scene and ruminates on the peripheries that carry it forward."

- A review by Karthik Keramalu in Open magazine

"This is where people meet; this is where they fall in love and this is where they settle down. Those riding its trains, buses and ferries have their dreams too, though mostly unfulfilled. That is a given. But one cannot brush them aside or push them under the mildewing carpet of memory."

- A review by Ganesh Saili in The New Indian Express

"The narration is lively and attractive. The story is not to delve deeper into the lives but to understand the merging of the city, its color, and the people’s psyches."

- A review by Swapna Peri in Storizen

"Short sketches are meant to be packed with detail, not a word out of place, and this is exactly the vividness that characterises this collection. And yet there is a sense of universality about the sketches as the reader will instantly recognise such characters in their lives too. The empathy with which she writes is at the heart and soul of every story. The stories linger with the reader after the book is closed."

- A review by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose 

"A diverse cast of characters — a cop, a bank teller, a security guard, a fragile woman having an affair, her lover, his ex-wife… — show up and, one by one, reveal parts of themselves: their thoughts, their observations, how other people see them, how they see other people, a significant life-altering incident. The local train runs in the backdrop."

- A review by Saudamini Jain in HT

Other reviews on Goodreads: 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60123555-city-of-incident---a-novel-in-twelve-parts?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=9JILgnWEtR&rank=1

More reviews on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.in/City-Incident-Novel-Twelve-Parts/dp/939065212X 

A first review for City of Incident

"Short sketches are meant to be packed with detail, not a word out of place, and this is exactly the vividness that characterises this collection. And yet there is a sense of universality about the sketches as the reader will instantly recognise such characters in their lives too. The empathy with which she writes is at the heart and soul of every story. The stories linger with the reader after the book is closed.

The universality of her characters is also played out by the ordinariness of their roles. Community, caste, and religion are not the identifying features of these stories. These scenarios can belong to anyone. It comes as a shock to the reader to realise this. Everyone has a story to tell. This collection proves it as long as one is prepared to look beyond the nameless faces and make the effort to understand."

A review by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose: http://www.jayabhattacharjirose.com/city-of-incident-by-annie-zaidi/?fbclid=IwAR0Xg5teyNtAS9JhSHtExxhViydiAYt7q6jb3-r0pwPGU4pQlxGtwaA-OtE

'Bread, Cement, Cactus': some reviews

Bread, Cement, Cactus: A memoir of belonging and dislocation is available in the USA, UK and in India, in print as well as in ebook format. You can buy the book at a bookstore or look it up online. 

A free download is also available at the Cambridge University Press (UK) website.

"In the author’s world, there is space to learn from family and strangers, boatmen and historians, poets and gangsters. She paints a vivid picture of the people she encounters in person or hears about from others. If they come from a different set of life circumstances, she uses that moment as an opportunity to reflect on her own position in society based on gender, language, marital status, religion, parentage and property. This inward gaze is missing from a lot of political analysis about the current state of the country, and that is why this book stands out for its sincerity. It is not a rant; it is sensitive and sophisticated."

- The Hindustan Times 

"In the end, the architecture of the book attempts to lead us towards a counter-resolution that will establish home instead in the paradise of personal experience – in “the morning mist” for example – but this is never as convincing as the lasting sense of indignation and injustice that Zaidi evokes. “What belongs to whom?” she asks. “Who pays the costs of what is taken and cannot be returned?” These are questions perhaps more powerful than the answers Zaidi can provide, but it’s through questions such as these that she points towards the deeper mysteries of our human condition."

- The Guardian 

"Zaidi is keen to tell the stories of people who lose power, and then have to give up ground. The migrants who live on the margins; the Adivasis, who “displaced often, end up in cities where they are reduced to penury and homelessness”; and minorities, including Muslims who face bias in everyday life.

So, this safe place called home, does it exist? For her, a home is where she wants to return to, the heart being a compass. Sometimes, she thinks of home as morning mist, wispy and beyond her grasp."

- The Hindu


"Zaidi shines a light on the horror of what an androcentric society is, yet reiterates the concept of dislocation not only to emphasize the pain women go through but the healing and belonging they could find when following their own path."

- The Brown Girl Magazine

"The disenfranchisement of women, anti-migrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, ghastly incidents such as how the body of a Dalit person was airdropped from a bridge to avoid the upper caste section of a crematorium, and the British legacies that still enable the displacement of forest dwellers and exploitation of natural resources, are juxtaposed alongside personal meditations. At one point, the author recalls how an experiment of living on the urban poverty line of Rs47 a day, even as a person without dependents, made her quickly realise: ‘…all the things that lend me a feeling of home—language, history, memory—would dissolve into the overwhelming consideration of hunger. Food would be home.’

In prose that is admirably both poetic and compact, Zaidi creates in Bread, Cement, Cactus both a memoir of her own multiple belongings as well as a tract that sets out India’s various modalities of displacement. ‘Dislocation can be abrupt but the internal compass dissolves slowly,’ she writes. This book ponders not only that slow dissolution, but a subsequent reassembling too—but always, with the sober acknowledgment of fragmentations yet to come."

- Open magazine

A new review for Unbound

We do the work of creation in the hope that it achieves something in our communities. Something gentle, or fierce, or resplendent. Something that makes the world tilt, even if it is just at the molecular level. 

Today, I was feeling rather gratified at finding a review of Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women's Writing. The book was published about five years ago and I wasn't expecting anyone to review it now. However, a reader has offered a very kind and personal response to the book. 

Aparna Ravikumar says: "This anthology’s charm lies in the way it has been put together. I could easily slip into the pages with an “Aha” moment here and an epiphany there. And slip out just as easily to have a meaningful discussion with the other mothers while waiting for our daughters at dance rehearsals. In the waiting room during my Dad’s surgery while reading the excerpt from Bama’s Chilli Powder with my mother, the lady next to her managed a chuckle through her snot-crusted, teary face. That’s when my mother realised that she was reading it aloud."

This is what one hopes to achieve when one puts together an anthology like Unbound: to convey to the reader the harsh beauty, the comedy and the farce, the sadness of this world, to deliver into their hands the words that have help us survive. Our foremothers, us, hopefully future generations too. Editing this anthology was hard work but I found my own cultural history and spiritual strength through all the reading I did while researching it. Seeing this review reminds me, once again, that those three and a half years was time well spent. 

Prelude to a Riot: excerpts, interviews and reviews

An interview with the Huffington Post, India about my new novel: Prelude to a Riot

An excerpt published in Scroll.com:

Annie Zaidi’s new novel takes us to a south Indian town where trouble is being brewed

Scroll describes Prelude to a Riot as 'immediately affecting, often harrowing, and sometimes hopeful'. 
"...a painful read, not because of the prose, which is exquisite, nor the narrative, which never flags, but because it invokes the troubling subject that is closest today to any sympathetic Indian heart" 

https://scroll.in/article/947357/annie-zaidis-novel-paints-a-searing-picture-of-how-communal-disharmony-affects-each-of-us


A review in The Hindu: 

Prelude to a Riot is an accurate, fearless and gripping account of the divided and uncertain times we are living in

A review in Open magazine:

Zaidi’s emotionally intelligent novel is remarkable in the complexity it manages to convey

A review in Hindustan Times:

Prelude to a Riot has the depth of reportage and a deep understanding of the human condition

A review in The Hindu Businessline:

Her skill lies in etching the attributes of each character with finesse, without ever forcing the reader to be judgemental.

Interview in the Indian Express about the roots of violence and the personal being political:

https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/a-lot-of-violence-comes-from-the-fear-of-losing-control-6055098/

Interview in the New Indian Express about violence and its impact:

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2019/oct/16/the-truth-sayer-2048093.html


A review in The Mint Lounge:

https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/the-beginning-of-an-end-foretold-1568374224159.html

Another review on Jaya's blog: 

http://www.jayabhattacharjirose.com/prelude-to-a-riot-by-annie-zaidi/

Half the night is indeed gone

Had reviewed Amitabha Bagchi's beautiful novel 'Half the Night is Gone' last year. Thinking of it again today, with admiration for its craft as well as it's insight.

Is the narrator Vishwanath telling a lightly fictionalised story of his own family? We cannot be sure. But there are parts of himself in all those characters, as there must be in the work of any writer. The story of two brothers, but these are not the same two brothers.

The foundations of 20th century India are revealed through the fractures within these twin narratives. We read the story of two families and a nation, of its classes and its schisms, of religious texts and poetry, and its place in the minds of people. The Ramcharitmanas (referred to just as Manas) is at the centre of the narrative, much like the figure of Ram himself has been central to the storm raging through the heart of the nation since the 1980s.

Part of the problem, Vishwanath realises, is that the nation was being ruled by a class that had moved so far from its cultural roots, it had forgotten the hold of religion over people’s hearts and how it could be channeled by political forces. Help, he writes, could have come from a different sort of intellectual, such as Hindi speakers like himself. “At the very least we knew who Tulsidas was and had read his work… Perhaps, together we could have created an alternative narrative that didn’t reduce people’s faith to complaints about noisy loudspeakers.”

Review here: https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/this-life-of-ours-5280165/