Mumbai Noir
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“The stories in this noir anthology are as raw and diverse as the city of Mumbai itself, humming with the feel for the city’s pulse and patter.” —The National
Today Mumbai is like any other Asian city on the rise, with gigantic construction cranes winding atop upcoming skyscrapers and malls. Right-wing violence, failing electricity and water supplies, overcrowding, and the ever-looming threat of terrorist attacks—these are some of the gruesome realities that Mumbai’s middle and working classes must deal with every day, while the city’s super-rich zip from roof to roof in their private choppers. Abandoned by its wealthy, mistreated by its politicians and administrators, Mumbai continues to thrive primarily because of the helpless resilience of its hardworking, upright citizens.
The stories in Mumbai Noir depict the many ways in which the city’s ever-present shadowy aspects often force themselves onto the lives of ordinary people. What emerges is the sense of a city that, despite its new name and triumphant tryst with capitalism, is yet to heal from the wounds of the communal riots of the 1990s and from all the subsequent acts of havoc wreaked within its precincts by both local and outside forces.
Mumbai Noir features stories by: Annie Zaidi, R. Raj Rao, Abbas Tyrewala, Avtar Singh, Ahmed Bunglowala, Smita Harish Jain, Sonia Faleiro, Altaf Tyrewala, Namita Devidayal, Jerry Pinto, Kalpish Ratna, Riaz Mulla, Paromita Vohra, and Devashish Makhija.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Most of the 14 short stories in Akashic's workmanlike Mumbai volume draw inspiration from the criminal networks and the sordid underbelly the city is infamous for. Riaz Mulla's "Justice," while lacking nuance, offers a vision of a future beyond the eye-for-eye logic that perpetuates the cycle of violence between Hindus and Muslims. Kalpish Ratna sets "At Leopold Caf " right after the 2008 attack by Islamic terrorists on several of Mumbai's tourist spots, but it's just as much about times past as times present. Avtar Singh's "Pakheezah" channels a Bollywood classic by the same name, albeit with less of a happy ending. The book's best entry, Namita Devidayal's "The Egg," is a darkly funny tale about housing societies, taboos, and the impossible Mumbai real estate. While none of the selections is a mystery in the traditional sense, armchair travelers will find plenty of amusement in touring the seedier parts of this island city in perfect safety.