A Golden Age [Paperback]

Starred Review. The experiences of a woman drawn into the 1971 Bangladesh war for independence illuminate the conflict's wider resonances in Anam's impressive debut, the first installment in a proposed trilogy. Rehana Haque is a widow and university student in Dhaka with two children, 17-year-old daughter Maya and 19-year-old son Soheil. As she follows the daily patterns of domesticity—cooking, visiting the cemetery, marking religious holidays—she is only dimly aware of the growing political unrest until Pakistani tanks arrive and the fighting begins. Suddenly, Rehana's family is in peril and her children become involved in the rebellion. The elegantly understated restraint with which Anam recounts ensuing events gives credibility to Rehana's evolution from a devoted mother to a woman who allows her son's guerrilla comrades to bury guns in her backyard and who shelters a Bengali army major after he is wounded. The reader takes the emotional journey from atmospheric scenes of the marketplace to the mayhem of invasion, the ruin of the city, evidence of the rape and torture of Hindus and Bengali nationalists, and the stench and squalor of a refugee camp. Rehana's metamorphosis encapsulates her country's tragedy and makes for an immersive, wrenching narrative. (Jan.)
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“In this striking debut novel . . . Anam deftly weaves the personal and the political, giving the terrors of war spare, powerful treatment while lyrically depicting the way in which the struggle for freedom allows Rehana to discover both her strength and her heart.” (The New Yorker )

“A vibrant first novel…A story that is both intimately close to the family and large enough to encompass a revolution.” (Denver Post )

“Told with great skill and urgency…Spellbinding in its sense of quiet foreboding…Anam has written a story about powerful events. But it is her descriptions of the small, unheralded moments, the ones slipping effortlessly between the interstices of major conflagrations, which truly touch the heart.” (San Francisco Chronicle )

“Readable and well crafted . . . Compelling . . . A generous act of creative empathy . . . Anam does not flinch from complexity and horror of a more intimate nature than the details of atrocities.” (Washington Post Book World )

“A GOLDEN AGE has everything an epic should have...[Anam] is able to convey the larger story of politics and war against a much smaller and more intimate story.” (San Jose Mercury News )

“A glittering debut…Readers of Khaled Hosseini’s brutal but magnificent A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS will find similar pleasures in Anam’s book.” (St. Petersburg Times )

“Written with marvelous control and understatement, this first novel impressed me with its maturity.” (Women's Review of Books )

“eventful, exotic, intelligent, and romantic” (Entertainment Weekly )

“Tahmima Anam’s startlingly accomplished and gripping novel describes not only the tumult of a great historical event…but also the small but heroic struggles of individuals living in the shadow of revolution and war.” (Pankaj Mishra )

“[A] wonderful addition to the growing list of novels that seek, in some way, to help us understand the history and people of South Asia.” (USA Today )

“Compelling…Anam is cracking open secrets, personal and political, to let the healing begin.” (O magazine )

“Moving…Full of beauty…Both a riveting tale and a lament for the atrocities the people suffered during Pakistan’s invasion in 1971 …The novel just keeps getting stronger as it progresses…building to a doozy of an ending.” (Christian Science Monitor )

“An illumination on how far a woman will go to protect her children’s bodies and souls . . . Anam reminds us most forcefully that a mother’s love for her child is the most powerful and frightening weapon there is.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune )

“Anam’s story gains momentum as its characters take shape…Readers will feel the depth of this nation’s crisis through its people, and the conclusion delivers a surprising blow.” (Rocky Mountain News )

“An impressive debut...Rehana’s metamorphosis encapsulates her country’s tragedy and makes for an immersive, wrenching narrative.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.