A darkly comic, speculative debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who attends a mysterious language school which boasts complete fluency in just ten days, but at a secret, sinister cost. Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of “great works of literature,” but instead mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood movies, living off her parents’ generous allowance, and discussing the “underside of life” with her best friend, Naima. Anisa’s mediocre white boyfriend, Adam, only adds to her growing sense of inadequacy with his savant-level aptitude for languages, successfully leveraging his expansive knowledge into an enviable career. But when Adam learns to speak Urdu with native fluency practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret. Adam begrudgingly tells Anisa about The Centre, an elite, invite-only program that guarantees near-instant fluency in any language. Skeptical but intrigued, Anisa enrolls—stripped of her belongings, contact with the outside world, and bodily autonomy—and emerges ten days later fluent in German. As Anisa enmeshes herself further within The Centre, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the true cost of its services. By turns dark, funny, and surreal, and with twists page-turning and shocking, The Centre takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation with biting specificity, and ultimately asking: what is success really worth?
Homebodies : A Novel
Tembe Denton-Hurst
audiobookThe Thirty Names of Night : A Novel
Zeyn Joukhadar
audiobookDesert Creatures
Kay Chronister
audiobookbookChildren of Paradise
Camilla Grudova
audiobookThe Glutton
A.K. Blakemore
audiobookSelf Portrait in Green
Marie NDiaye
bookQuiet Dell : A Novel
Jayne Anne Phillips
audiobookbookThe Most Precious of Cargoes : A Fable of the Holocaust
Jean-Claude Grumberg
audiobookDOOM 94
Janis Jonevs
bookThe Snakes : A Novel
Sadie Jones
audiobookOn Wilder Seas: The Woman on the Golden Hind : The Woman on the Golden Hind
Nikki Marmery
audiobookSilken Gazelles
Jokha Alharthi
audiobookbook