The Centre
by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
Anisa Ellahi is a
thirty-something Pakistanti émigré who
ekes out a living in London subtitling Bollywood movies, while dreaming of
translating “great works of literature”.
She meets and starts living with Adam, a fellow translator, who is quite caring and sort of OK, even if strangely
passionless. He makes up for the aptitude he lacks in the bedroom with a superhuman
knack for languages, which he appears to master with incredible fluency and ease.
One day, Adam reveals his secret.
He is a repeat visitor to the Centre, an elite, invite-only academy
which promises to get its students to speak a language like a native within a
matter of days. When Anisa herself
becomes a student at the Centre, she starts to discover the dark secrets behind
the Centre’s success...
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s debut novel is based on an original and shocking premise which makes of The Centre a gripping thriller-like read. It also combines many disparate elements: speculative fiction, horror, comedy, women’s fiction, multicultural fiction. It is also a moral/socially-conscious novel, with the Centre doubling as an extended metaphor for imbalances of power (between cultures, between social classes, between generations, between sexes). All his makes The Centre an interesting and exciting read – even a page-turner, I would say. However, I wonder whether the novel tries to be too many things at the same time, such that it ultimately loses its focus. I also found the open-ended meta-(non)ending rather frustrating.
Despite reservations, this is a promising and enjoyable debut.
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