Ameena Meer
I sometimes wonder whether Zia Jaffrey has a sixth sense, a sort of x-ray vision that gives her deep brown eyes the ability to penetrate the hearts of others.
Louis Edwards is the kind of sweet, gangly guy you knew in high school. He’s shy and considerate, with a self-conscious smile on his bespectacled face that turns quickly into a laugh. In conversation, he steers around controversy, avoiding the slightest meanness. His novel, Ten Seconds, is the opposite.
Author Jessica Hagedorn talks to Ameena Meer about incorporating Filipino traditions, taboos, and superstitions into a mixed media narrative in her novel, Dogeaters.
Vikram Seth discusses what it means to be an Indian writer, the art of translation, and living in China in the early ’80s.
Mark Leyner’s prose is steeped in American pop culture and Burroughsesque descriptions of the grosser aspects of human behavior. Amanda Meer warns against reading them at the dinner table.
Hoof beats clacked across the driveway. Horns honked. “The horse! The horse!” someone shrieked. “Oh, he’s so beautiful!” Jimmy recognized the voice of one of his girl-cousins.
Anish Kapoor and Ameena Meer discuss sex and death, subjectivity, and colors. Kapoor’s new work is on view now at Gladstone Gallery.
“For me, and perhaps for other immigrant writers, there’s a death and a series of rebirths. It’s very painful and traumatic letting go of the old self.”
“The power of cinema lies in its ability to cut across social barriers. That’s what we’ve been trying to do. Literacy is not necessary—the upper classes should not be the guides for you to understand and appreciate a film. It has to be direct human contact. It can communicate with the psyche.”
Despite death threats and religious edict, subversive novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie has won numerous awards and remains a prominent voice in global politics.
When I looked in the bathroom mirror this morning, a crowd of people looked back.
Mona Simpson’s first novel, Anywhere But Here, explores the complicated relationship of a mother and daughter as they go in search of their own strangely American dreams.