A Fine Balance
Narayan found it unbearable to listen to or watch their troubled preparations. He doubted if anything he said would make a difference. Pretending he was going down to the shop, he slipped out the back to their neighbour and told him of the planned flight. “Is he...
Liberty
On my notebooks from school On my desk and the trees On the sand on the snow I write your name On every page read On all the white sheets Stone blood paper or ash I write your name On the golden images On the soldier’s weapons On the crowns of kings I write your name...
American Pastoral
Five years pass, five years searching for an explanation, going back over everything, over the circumstances that shaped her, the people and the events that influenced her, and none of it adequate to begin to explain the bombing until he remembers the Buddhist monks,...
A Fine Balance
“Plastic hairband, unbreakable, plastic hairclip, flower shape, butterfly shape, colourful comb, unbreakable.” The combseller recited in a half-hearted monotone, uncertain whether this was a real customer or just a joker passing the time. “Big comb and small comb,...
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
From the Veranda of the Room of the Last Chrysanthemum at the Magistracy The Ninth Day of the Ninth Month Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens,...