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May 30, 2006
Guardian Review of Monica Ali's novel 'Alentejo Blue'
Alentejo Blue, Monica Ali's 2nd novel is set in a village in Portugal and follows the lifes of a various characters who live in the village or visit it. An excerpt appeared in The New Yorker as the short story, The Sundowners. I enjoyed the crisp pacing and richly drawn characters and actually liked that it had nothing to do with Bangladesh or Ali's heritage etc... It seems though that Natasha Walter, an author reviewing the novel for the Guardian, would have preferred exactly that.
It's not just the presence of more than one tourist in the book that makes you feel like a tourist when you're reading it. All the characters bow off too hurriedly, little sketches that never get fleshed out, people glimpsed from a train that is moving too quickly through a strange landscape. Even if you enjoy the ride, you can't help wishing that Monica Ali had chosen to write about somewhere she knew better, or wanted to know better.read full review here
Posted by Soniah Kamal at May 30, 2006 01:00 PM
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Posted by: Anonymous at May 30, 2006 01:00 PM
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