A moving account of the Bangladesh War of 1971 from the point of view of a middle-aged widow, Rehana, who is drawn into the independence struggle by her adult children. Maybe a little bit over-romantic in places, but it gives a convincing picture of what it must feel like to find your normal life overturned by a civil war. Anam was only born in 1975, so she’s writing about people in her parents’ and grandparents’ generation, but she seems to have based the book on an extensive set of interviews with people who were directly involved. ( )

All in all, this book was just okay-to-good. It tells the story of an apolitical widow who is caught up in the 1971 Bangledesh War of Independence, and of her reluctant contributions as her son and daughter join the resistance. And it really is her story, as the author shows us her grief and fear and longing, but once war begins, we are kept removed from events and even, to some extent, from the emotions. Still, the story is populated with refugees and soldiers and citizens who must choose where their loyalties lie, so it kept my interest through the end.

Hardcover version, which I picked up as a discard from a Friends of the Library sale. I read this for the 2017 Booklikes-opoly challenge, for the square Adventureland 24: Take the Jungle Cruise. Read a book set in Africa or Asia, or that has an exotic animal on the cover. This book fits because it is set in East Pakistan, in Asia.

Previous Updates:

5/20/17 They were not children anymore. She had to keep reminding herself of this fact. At nineteen and seventeen, they were almost grown up. She clung greedily to this almost, but she knew it would not last long, this hovering, flirting with adulthood. Already they were beings apart, fast on their way to shedding the fierce hungry mother-need.

I'm glad I'm reading this in a bound version, because there are some descriptions that I'm already stopping to savor, but also because there is so much that I don't understand. I actually stopped reading for a bit while I did some internet searching on the Bangladesh War of Independence and on East Pakistan, of which I knew nothing whatsoever. So now I think I know enough to at least get a sense of the historical, political, and social issues that affect the human story, although I'm sure most of it will still go over my head.

This book is beginning as a sweet, sad story of a widowed mother who lost and recovered her children, but clearly it's about to descend into some real horrors.

5/20/17 Sohail loved Bengal. He may have inherited his mother's love of Urdu poetry, but it was nothing to the love he had for all things Bengali: the swimming mud of the delta; the translucent, bony river fish; the shocking green palette of the paddy and the open, aching blue of the sky over flat land.

5/21/17 Rehana often wondered if she could help loving one child better. She had a blunt, tired love for her daughter. It was full of effort. Sohail was her first-born, and so tender, and Maya was so hard, all sympathy worked out of her by the throaty chants of the street march, the pitch of the slogan.
( )

I can't quite figure out why it took me nearly two months to read A Golden Age, but it's not Tahmima Anam's fault. Her characters are compelling and the period of Bangladesh's struggle to gain independence from Pakistan is a fascinating one that I previously knew nothing about. Good book; bad timing. ( )

I am embarrassed to admit I really knew nothing about the Bangladesh Liberation War and genocide...even with a shallow knowledge of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh. So this book was a crash course in that--I was wrapped up in the lives of the characters while simultaneously researching the history of the war (and country as a whole). The book started a little slow and I was wondering how committed I would be, but I was hooked by the end. The audio was fantastic--the reader, Madhur Jaffrey, made you feel like you were sitting with an auntie, telling the story from Rehana's POV. I look forward to checking out the next book the trilogy.

********
Read Harder: A book about war ( )

This is a simply, nicely written account based on a history I was unfamiliar with, and though it's not earth-shattering prose or a wildly innovative story, it was very much worth a read, and I'll likely wind up reading the followup. ( )