The Centre
Ratings37
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings37
Average rating3.4
Welcome to The Centre. You'll never be the same . . .
Anisa Ellahi spends her days writing subtitles for Bollywood films in her London flat, all the while longing to be a translator of ‘great works of literature’. Her boyfriend Adam’s extraordinary aptitude for languages only makes her feel worse, but when Adam learns to speak Urdu practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.
Adam tells Anisa about the Centre, an elite, invite-only programme that guarantees total fluency in any language in just ten days. Sceptical but intrigued, Anisa enrols. Stripped of her belongings and contact with the outside world, she undergoes the Centre’s strange and rigorous processes. But as she enmeshes herself further within the organization, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the disturbing, hidden cost of its services.
By turns dark, funny and surreal, The Centre takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation and appropriation with biting specificity, and ultimately asking: what price would you be willing to pay for success?
A remarkable debut from Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, announcing the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.
Reviews with the most likes.
I enjoyed this one a lot. It covers a lot of topics but it never feels forced. The writing style was beautiful, the pacing was steady, the relationships between the characters and their evolution felt real. It's aggressively unpretentious and that's perhaps the thing that surprised me the most about it. Its cleareyed celebration of friendship between women was also absolutely delightful. It's not the most action packed book but it's a good book.
Enjoyed this world, it cleanly and visually builds - I can see this translating well onto film or TV. The protagonist has a fresh, accessible, thoughtful, aware and self deprecating contemporary voice which lends well to keeping the mixed controversial themes on the table in a conversational sense without it turning it heavy . My irk was that I felt it was a great set up to another novel (I went to an evening with the author and she has no plans to write another sadly) - I felt it offered a lot of exciting possibilities.
