Staying with the theme of International PEN,an organisation I grow even more fond of each time I visit their web-site,I have decided to post a book review or description which was part of FREE THE WORD!I also liked this because the novel takes place in a country that we don't usually hear about,Bangladesh. It striked me as a close novel because I know someone who is from Bangladesh and the troubles she explans about in her country so therfore,I have an interest. Besides this I found that the book touches upon a very personal story but is also political and therfore it has all the elements of an enjoyable book and would be good to read and analyse.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK WITH INFO ON AUTHORS,BOOK REVIEWS AND MORE INFO ON HOW TO WRITE A PROFESSIONAL BOOK REVIEW...COMING SOON!

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A GOLDEN AGE

TAHMIMA ANAM

(International PEN)

The steadfast love of a mother for her children powers Tahmima Anam's novel, A Golden Age, which chronicles the Haque family during the struggle for Bangladesh independence in 1971.

Chosen to launch International PEN's Free the Word! World Book Club, this first novel narrates a complex historical period through the story and struggle of the widow Rehana and her son Sohail, who joins the resistance, and her daughter Maya, who fights with words as a young writer.

Anam's tale begins hauntingly: Dear Husband, I lost our children today. Taken from her in East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh) by her brother-in-law, Rehana's children are transported across the expanse of India to West Pakistan (today's Pakistan) after Rehana's husband dies suddenly, and Rehana is unable to prove her capacity to raise them.

This early trauma marks the family and sets the paradigm for the personal and political struggle in the book. Once Rehana wins her children back, she is fierce in protecting them and serving them as the politics of her land sweep her family and friends into the battle with Pakistan.

As her son goes off to fight in the resistance, Rehana is torn between her love for her son, her respect for his courage and ideals and her fear for his life. Her relation with her daughter is more complex but no less intense. This mother love does not come without a price, however, in the moral choices she must make.

Rehana is a reluctant, but ultimately courageous, heroine in the birth of a nation.

You are a mother. How many times had she repeated this very phrase to herself? I am a mother. Above all things, a mother. Not a widow, certainly not a wife. Not a thief. A mother. But now she was something else--a mother, yes, but not just of children. Mother of a different sort. This mother knew what it was to long for her children. But she also understood the dangers of such longing.

Tahmima Anam, who has PhD in social anthropology, explores the themes of love-love for one's children, love and loyalty between a man and a woman, between siblings, between friends and finally love for one's country. This prism-- this jewel of high price-- is held up to the light and turned so that each plane reflects and refracts the light of the other and tests it. Does the love of children trump the love of a man and a woman, expand to the love of friends and country, inspire or distract from moral action?