If you’re looking to satisfy that craving for some provocative fiction, might I recommend Tania James‘ debut novel Atlas of Unknowns. Hailed by pulitzer prize winner Junot Diaz as an “Astonishment of a debut,” James’ Atlas of Unknowns is the next installment in the great line of transnational narratives being penned by “young” writers such as Diaz, Edwidge Danticat and Zadie Smith. Her Indian background will likely tempt most to compare James to South Asian women writers such as Arundhati Roy orJumpa Lahiri–and to some extent there’s merit to these comparisons, but James’ prose appears closer to her Caribbean-American peers Diaz and Danticat thant to her South Asian predecessors. In fact, one senses glimpses of Michelle Cliff and Paule Marshall in the way that James narrates her protagonist Anju’s attempts at finding her footing in two worlds. James’ New York is an updated version of the immigrant cyclone memorialized in Cliff and Marshall’s own encounters with the city. As Diaz further attests, Atlas of Unknowns is ”so radiant with life, with love, with good old human struggle that I had trouble detaching myself from its pages.”
Atlas of Unknowns is published by Random House and is available today.
For more information on Tania James, her work and upcoming book tour, visit www.taniajames.com
