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How to pronounce Tahmima Anam: Emphasis on the second syllable of last name
Tahmima Anam is the recipient of a Commonwealth Writers Prize, an O. Henry Prize, and has been named one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and was recently elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she was educated at Mount Holyoke College and Harvard University and now lives in London where she is on the board of ROLI, a music tech company founded by her husband.
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Did you always want to be a writer? You have a Ph.D. in social anthropology— do you ever consider returning to the academic world?
I wasn't a very devoted academic—I found the idea of writing something that
had to stick to a certain notion of truthfulness very difficult. Anthropology is
certainly the most literary of the social sciences, and yet one still has to
adhere to a loose sense of "what really happened." I wanted a genre that
would allow me to tell my readers something about what it was like to have lived
through the Bangladesh war, something visceral and palpable. In this case, not
having to stick to the facts really enabled that act of the imagination.
Having said all of that, I miss being part of an academic institution. I spent
so many years in grad school that I now fi nd myself feeling a bit lost when
September rolls around and there aren't any classes to attend. And I love to
teach, so perhaps someday I will teach creative writing.
Where do you write? Do you tend to follow a strict work schedule or write in
spurts of activity?
What I'm about to tell you is very odd, I know, but it happens to be true: I
wrote almost all of A Golden Age ...
Aamina Ahmad, a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award. Her short fiction has appeared in One Story, The Southern ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
A Golden Age
Try:
The Return of Faraz Ali
by Aamina Ahmad
Monica Ali is the daughter of English and Bangladeshi parents.
She came to England at the age of three, and her first home was Bolton in Greater Manchester. Ali later studied at Oxford University.
Her first novel, Brick ...
(more)
If you enjoyed:
A Golden Age
Try:
Brick Lane
by Monica Ali
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