Word!

Animal's People by Indra Sinha

Ever since That Night, the residents of Khaufpur have lived a perilous existence.

The water they drink, the ground they walk on and the atmosphere they breathe is poisoned. Nobody has received compensation or help for the chemical leak, least of all Animal, as he is known, whose spine twisted at a young age, leaving him to walk on all fours. His mind is full of foul, insidious thoughts, but the bitterness is mixed with a longing to know human affection and, more urgently, sex. He inhabits a dark kind of half-life.

But Animal still knows what love is. He has harboured feelings for his friend Nisha, the daughter of a local musician as long as he can remember. It’s not that she is particularly good-looking; it’s how she does things. Her smile, the way she moves her hair from her face and how she treats him. There will be no chance for him though, as she is enamoured of his friend Zafar. So he has to watch from a distance, taunted by the insults of others and not allowing himself hope.

When Elli Barber arrives, an ‘Amrikan’ keen to set up a free clinic to help the victims of the disaster, deep suspicion arises amongst the community. Why has she come? Why does she want to help for no money? Is she a saint or an undercover spy for the factory owners? Animal resolves to turn the situation to his advantage and starts to investigate Ellie’s motives. He attempts to get to the bottom of things and help himself along the way. What follows is a web of scams and intrigue which will keep you, the ‘eyes’ gripped from first page to last.

Disturbing, entertaining and full of truths about the human dilemma, Indra Sinha’s second novel is as original as his first.

The Sheikh's Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop Culture in the Muslim World

Inspired by a ten-year-old Kazakh’s startlingly enthusiastic reflections on the merits of Borat, rogue journalist Richard Poplak sets out on a two-year odyssey to explore modern Muslims’ appreciation and appropriation of America’s pop cultural fixations. He is curious to see what happens to our pop songs and sitcoms after they’ve been beamed beyond the closed doors of the Islamic world via satellite dishes, pirate radio and the internet. Hopping a flight from the Eurasian hinterlands to Tripoli, he searches in vain for a legendary alleyway where years before, hundreds of children reputedly acted out the scenes of Hello, Lionel Ritchie’s once celebrated MTV clip.

Libya is just the first stop on a globe trotting tour of more than a dozen struggling democracies, autocratic theocracies, failed states and rogue regimes. On the ground, he’s surprised to find thriving creative communities operating under the radar and a myriad of peculiar local obsessions, including Lebanon’s multi-million dollar plastic surgery industry, a bullish Saudi market for customized muscle cars and Indonesia’s thriving DIY hardcore punk scene. Along the way he’s body slammed by WWE enthusiasts in Afghanistan, bowls with the chief of police in small town Kazakhstan and keeps it realer than real with Palestinian hip hop artists amidst the staccato AK-47 fire of the Gaza Strip.

Each encounter is unique, but within the distinct local cultural flavours he finds unity in a generation of artists and enthusiasts keen to re-imagine their nations as places of opportunity, creativity and freedom by reinterpreting and remixing ideas from the west with their own established and emerging traditions. Poplak challenges North American readers to engage with these dispatches from their Eastern brethren, suggesting that a pop cultural dialogue may triumph where a centuries long tradition of terrorism, imperialism, warfare and nation building have failed.

About the Author: Richard Poplak is the author of the acclaimed Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-Era South Africa. He has written for, among others, The Walrus, THIS Magazine, Toronto Life and the Globe and Mail and has directed numerous short films, music videos and commercials. He lives in Toronto.