Bookworm's Nook

  PARADISE Abdulrazak Gurnah “They offered me freedom as a gift. She did. Who told her she had it to offer? I know the freedom you are talking about. I had that freedom the moment I was born. When these people say you belong to me, I own you, it is like the passing of the rain, or the setting of the sun at the end of the day.”     These touching words are an excerpt from 2021 Nobel Prize Winning  'Paradise' by Tanzanian Writer Abdulrazak Gurnah. It follows around Yusuf , a Muslim teenage boy , in East Africa. He is unknowingly sent with his 'Uncle Aziz' , just to know later that he has been sold to him by his parents for money and a temporary escape from poverty. Life isn't easy. He has to travel long to reach his destination. Even after reaching their life isn't easy. It is the story of coming of age of Yusuf against the backdrop of an Africa of myth, dreams and Biblical and Koranic tradition. The book also ends with a creeping in of corruption and colonialism

  THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS Arundhati Roy "D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less ."      True indeed. These are words quoted from the 1997 booker prize winning 'The God Of Small Things' by Indian-Malayali writer Arundhati Roy. Set in a Ayemenem, in Kottayam , the story explores around the shattered lives of "two-egg" twins , Estha and Rahel with the background of the "Love Laws" prevalent in Kerala in the 1960s. The novel follows around how their lives get upturned with a single visit from their Anglo-Indian cousin Sophie-Mol .The Sophie mol who smells good . Whom all love. Even Ammu, their mother . As the author says ," The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how . And how much " the story follows around the relationships within siblings , families, between lovers and an unending number of