Waiting for the story
Reading that Amitav Ghosh’s new novel Sea of Poppies is on this year’s Man Booker shortlist, my thoughts went back to one summer in Bangalore many years ago, when I was teaching one of Ghosh’s prose pieces to a class of teenage schoolboys. Titled The Imam and the Indian, it was part of an anthology included in their English syllabus.
The boys were restless and bright and awkward, as boys of that age tend to be. As for me, I had chalk dust on my hands, notebooks to correct, and this wasn’t quite my idea of fun. (more…)
