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FICTION
THE FEAST OF THE GOAT
By Mario Vargas Llosa (Faber, £17.99)
Another majestic novel that grapples with big ideas of history by one
of the doyens of Latin American fiction. The horror story of the Dominican
dictator Rafael Trujillo is an engrossing essay on power and tyranny.
AUSTERLITZ
By W.G. Sebald (Hamish Hamilton, £16.99)
Jacques Austerlitz as a boy under the care of foster parents has been
denied an identity and an ancestry. As a retired architectural historian,
he has to face a terrible past and truth about his true parents. Doesn't
Austerlitz rhyme with Auschwitz? Sebald, a literary genius, died recently
in a London car crash.
MY NAME IS RED
By Orhan Pamuk (Faber, £10.99)
In the fundamentalist 16th century Istanbul, one of the miniaturists assigned
to illustrate the secret book on the Sultan and his empire vanishes. The
murder mystery by Turkey's foremost novelist dazzles with ideas.
THE NAUTICAL CHART
By Arturo Perez-Reverte (Picador, £6.99)
A metaphysical thriller set on the high seas by the Spanish author of
The Dumas Club and The Fencing Master. Manuel Coy, a bookish sailor without
a ship, meets a beautiful woman and then begins a seafaring mystery. A
brainy page-turner.
ATONEMENT
By Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, £16.99)
The best from the Booker-winning author of Amsterdam. The story of Briony
Tallis, 13, is a captivating meditation on the idea of absolution and
the grammar of forgiveness, love and longing in the backdrop of war, told
by a master stylist.
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| PAMUK: Spellbinder from Turkey desperately |
EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL: 14 DARK TALES
By Stephen King (Scribner, $28)
The grandmaster of psychological horror is back with a chilling bang and
is "practising the (almost) lost art" of the short story. Pass
through Autopsy Room Four and Meet The Man in the Black Suit. Spooky and,
yes, very literary.
ARTEMIS FOWL: THE ARCTIC INCIDENT
By Eoin Colfer (Puffin, £2.99)
Evil's poster boy Artemis Fowl is back. This time his little nemesis,
the gamine but sexy goblin cop Captain Holly Short, is an ally against
the traitor who has stolen forbidden arsenal and armed the trolls with
it.
THE IMPRESSIONIST
By Hari Kunzru (Hamish Hamilton, £7.50)
An empire-ripping romp by a first novelist. The tale of Pran Nath is the
story of reinventing identities.
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| LLOSA: The Latin American master at his peak
non-fiction |
THE HOUSE OF BLUE MANGOES
By David Davidar (Viking, Rs 395)
A generational saga on a riverbank in the deep south.
THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE
By Barbara Cleverly (Constable, £16.99)
In the cantonment town of Panikhat, the wives of the officers of the elite
Bengal Greys are dying bizarre deaths.There is a Kashmiri red rose on
their graves.
YOUTH
By J.M. Coetzee (Secker & Warburg, £14.99)
After the Booker-winning Disgrace, the South African master surprises
with a young man's bleak discoveries in London. As usual, Coetzee is majestically
austere.
NON-FICTION
THEM: ADVENTURES WITH EXTREMISTS
By Jon Ronson (Picador, £16)
Travels in the world of 12-ft lizard men, pr-savvy Ku Klux Klansmen, kidnapped
sex slaves, Ceausescu's shoes and jehadis; and the author all the while
chased by men in dark glasses.
RIVER DOG
By Mark Shand (Little Brown, £5.50)
A journey down the Brahmaputra on a boat named Kailash, captained by a
ganja-smoking Gamma, and the traveller in the company of the ultra cool
Indian pye-dog Bhaiti.
ISLAM: EMPIRE OF FAITH
By Jonathan Bloom & Sheila Blair (BBC, £10.99)
Islam may be the raging religion of the day, but not in this book, which
gives a lucid introduction to the culture and politics of the world's
fastest-growing religion.
KAMASUTRA
Trans by Wendy Doniger & Sudhir Kakar (Oxford, Rs 350)
The positions may not have changed, but the philosophy behind them have
in this translation that brings the woman back on the top, complete with
the Vedic viagra recipe.
TRUTH, LOVE & A LITTLE MALICE
By Khushwant Singh (Viking, Rs 450)
The self-styled swansong from literary Delhi's eminence grise. Apart from
his political encounters, the Sardar's early life as a pampered son is
particularly engaging.
 
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CURRENT
ISSUE MAY 13, 2002
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