Bangladesh is independent, but is at risk of losing much of what was fought for, as a dictator has taken over. The Dhaka of 1984 is very different from that of 1971. She had erased from her memory all knowledge of the sacred, returned her body to a time before it had been taught to kneel, to prostrate itself.” (pp. She had unlearned the surahs her mother had recited aloud, forgotten the soft feather of air across her forehead when Ammoo whispered a prayer and blew the blessing out of her mouth. Maya, on the other hand, “had taught herself away from faith.

His is a religion detached from this world. He is the good Muslim of the title, but “good” refers to pious, devout, rather than other readings of the word, kind, generous, pleasant. Sohail, in this novel, turns to religion as solace for the horrors of the war he was part of as a young man in 1971. Maya is headstrong to the point of arrogance so independent that she shuts out those close to her she is politically engaged, but so idealistic that it she actually reaches back around the corner to naivete. One of Anam’s authorial skills is to make the reader empathise with unlikeable characters. And while it could be said that with A Golden Age the Bangladesh War of Independence of 1971 provided a ready setting to which the characters responded, in The Good Muslim, Anam had to create a setting with no prompt.Īnam returns to her central characters of A Golden Age, Maya and Sohail, thirteen years on, but prior knowledge of them is merely helpful, not essential, giving The Good Muslim stand-alone strength. But calling it a sequel doesn’t quite do it justice because it surpasses her earlier work in complexity and strength. Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim is her sequel to A Golden Age, which I reviewed in December 2011. Feminism India Literary festivals Nepal Non-fiction Novels Pakistan South Asian writing in English Translations Women's writing Recent Posts

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