CANR
WORK TITLE: LETTERS TO A WRITER OF COLOR
WORK NOTES:
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WEBSITE: https://www.deepa-anappara.com
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COUNTRY: United Kingdom
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PERSONAL
Lives in the United Kingdom.
EDUCATION:Received her M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Worked as a journalist in India for 11 years.
AWARDS:Recipient of a Developing Asia Journalism Award, an Every Human has Rights Media Award, and a Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism; Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was named a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, and NPR and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel; a portion of the novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writer’s Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Born in Kerala, India, Deepa Anappara received her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia and spent the next 11 years as a journalist in her home country, reporting on the issues of poverty and religious violence and their influence on children’s education. Her efforts earned her numerous awards, including the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism. Anappara’s first novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, also received recognition, being named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, and NPR and winning the Edgar Award for Best Novel, among other accolades.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line tells the story of nine-year-old Jai, an Indian boy who lives in a slum with his parents and older sister. The tin roof of his one-room home is full of holes, but the family does own a television on which Jai loves to watch police shows like Police Patrol and Live Crime. When Jai’s classmate Bahadur goes missing, Jai and his friends Pari and Faiz band together to solve the mystery. As the story evolves, more children disappear from Jai’s slum, leading to violence against the city’s Muslim population and upper-class citizens as the police do little, if anything, to find the missing children. Jai and Pari take a train to the center of the city in search of clues, farther than either of them has traveled from home by themselves. However, when Jai’s sister also disappears, Jai loses faith in himself, “and even the solution of the mystery fails to bring him closure,” as Michael Cart explained in his review of the novel for Booklist.
When asked about her inspiration behind Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Anappara told Emily Pedder in an interview for the City University of London that “[t]he spark for the novel came from a spate of real-life disappearances of children in India” where “no effort had been made to find them because they were from poor families that had no voice or political power.” Talking to Priyanka Mogul for Asia House, Anappara also explained her perception of herself as a political writer and how she “hope[s] to more than just entertain” with her novel and other works of fiction. However, she told Mogul that her goal was not to write a novel about such poignant issues as “inequality or trafficking”; she “wanted to write about a nine-year-old boy named Jai and his friends, and how they coped in an extremely difficult situation.”
With all of the awards Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line received, it is no surprise that it was well reviewed by critics. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the novel a “resonant debut” and Anappara “a strong talent.” A Kirkus Reviews writer agreed, concluding that “Engaging characters, bright wit, and compelling storytelling make a tale that’s bleak at its core and profoundly moving.” Maureen Corrigan, in a review shared by the Washington Post, concentrated on the voices of the characters, particularly Jai, whose voice she calls “remarkable.” As a whole, Corrigan called Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line a “moving and unpredictable novel” that “defies easy classification.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 1, 2019, Michael Cart, review of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, p. 33.
Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2019, review of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line; January 1, 2023, review of Letters to a Writer of Color.
Publishers Weekly, December 9, 2019, review of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, pp. 123+.
ONLINE
Asia House, https://asiahousearts.org/ (January 23, 2020), Priyanka Mogul, author interview.
Bookseller, https://www.thebookseller.com/ (August 6, 2021), Sian Bayley, “Vintage Signs Letters to a Writer of Colour Edited by Anappara and Soomro.”
City University of London, https://blogs.city.ac.uk/ (January 23, 2020), Emily Pedder, author interview.
Deepa Anappara website, https://www.deepa-anappara.com, author website.
Washington Post, washingtonpost.com/ (February 6, 2020), Maureen Corrigan, review of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line.
Deepa Anappara was born in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in India for eleven years. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism.
Her debut novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature.
A partial of the novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writer’s Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel. It is being translated into 23 languages.
Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Colour, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture, forthcoming from Random House (US) and Vintage (UK) in March 2023.
Author Q&A: Deepa Anappara, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
anappara
23 January 2020
Priyanka Mogul, Literature Programme Manager
Everyone has been talking about Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by debut novelist Deepa Anappara. It’s the Winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel. It was also picked as one to watch by the Guardian, Observer, Vogue and Stylist – as well as referred to as “storytelling at its best” by Anne Enright, Booker-prize winning author of The Gathering.
Which is why we’re so excited to be hosting Anappara for a London event on 11 February 2020. Held in partnership with Foyles, Anappara will sit down with journalist and editor Sarah Shaffi to discuss the realities of the harsh landscape in which the story is set, and its stark, truthful reflection of India and other major cities around the world today. She will also open up on her own writing process, and the steps that led to the publication of her first novel.
Ahead of our event with Anappara, we asked the author a few questions about this stunning new debut to wet your appetites further.
Why did you want to write ‘Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line’?
The novel is drawn from a spate of real-life disappearances of children in India, where I lived for most of my life and worked as a journalist for over eleven years. During that time, I learnt about impoverished neighbourhoods where twenty or thirty children had gone missing over two or three years, never to be found again. The police refused to register cases, and didn’t investigate these disappearances. I used to interview children for my news reports on their schooling, and so naturally I was interested in their stories, in how they made sense of these horrors, and how they lived with the knowledge that they themselves could be abducted any day. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is an attempt to answer those questions through fiction.
“The children in my novel are composites of the children I had interviewed as a reporter. They were often cheeky and funny and sarcastic, and I have tried to recreate their voices in that of my characters.”
The book, although a work of fiction, touches on many social issues ranging from social inequality and child trafficking to religious tensions. What role do you think fiction plays in raising awareness about social issues, and in what way can it be a powerful tool to do so?
I do think of myself as a political writer and, because of where I am from, my background, and my experiences, I hope to more than just entertain in my fiction. At the same time, I am aware that writing fiction isn’t the same as writing a polemical pamphlet. Fiction has to succeed on its own terms, and I personally believe a novel can’t be gauged on authorial intent.
Therefore, my aim while writing fiction is to inhabit the world of the characters and, it is through their voices, interactions and relationships that I hope the world of the novel and its themes will be revealed. I didn’t set out to write a novel about inequality or trafficking – rather, I wanted to write about a nine-year-old boy named Jai and his friends, and how they coped in an extremely difficult situation. In their daily lives, they aren’t insulated from the pressures of the outside world where religion, caste and class determine who receives support and who doesn’t. My aim in the novel was to portray their lives as honestly as possible.
How much research did you have to do for the book, and what sort of places and people did your research introduce you to?
I worked as a journalist for eleven years, writing among other subjects, about the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children. As part of this, I visited neighbourhoods like the one in my novel, and I was fortunate that the residents often invited me to their homes and talked to me. I couldn’t have written this novel if not for the generosity the people I interviewed showed me.
While writing the novel, I referred to academic books and journal articles (a few of these are listed on my website) to fill the gaps in my own understanding and knowledge. I spoke with members of civil society organisations in India that work towards finding missing children, and for the education of children, and also policemen to understand the procedures they are expected to follow when there is a missing child case. A surprisingly difficult part of the research was watching the true-crime TV cop shows that inspired the fictional one Jai loves, and prompts his sleuthing. It is safe to say that unlike Jai, I found their recreation of crime scenes and investigations unsettling.
Which character in the book did you most enjoy writing – and why?
I enjoyed writing all of them. Jai is the main narrator in the novel, and I liked seeing the world as he sees it – he is naïve and perhaps overconfident, and his still-forming, often-questionable ideas of the world are dictated by what he has picked up from those around him, but he is also full of innocence and good cheer and warmth.
Do you have a specific writing process – i.e. a place or time of day that you like to write most, or a rule about how often you write every week?
I think it’s important to acknowledge that processes, routines etc are often a result of privilege in whatever form; while it is a good goal to aim for, not everyone will be able to write every day or at a particular time each day, and the hours we can carve out for writing will depend on what we are dealing with in our personal lives etc.
Writing rituals and routines are not as important to me as attempting to stay in the world of the novel during the time it takes to write one – this may involve just going over what I have already written every day, and changing a word or two.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
It is hard to think of yourself as a writer unless you are published, but perhaps there is no such thing as ‘aspiring’, and if you write, you are a writer. I struggled and still struggle with that question as to whether I am a ‘real’ writer; imposter syndrome is real, at least for me, and part of my daily work is to quieten these critical voices in my head and keep writing.
“I do think it’s important to write whenever you can, to persist with the story you want to tell and try to find the best possible way to tell it, regardless of rejections and failures.”
I also think it’s important to read as widely as possible, and to find a community of writers with whom you can share your writing.
What message do you hope people will take away from the ‘Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line’?
It is finally up to readers what they will take away from the novel. I can only hope that the reader will connect with Jai and his friends, and see their world as they see it; and perhaps this will encourage the reader to reflect on the vulnerable children in their own communities as also those thousands of miles away.
An interview with Deepa Anappara
JANUARY 23, 2020 / EMILY / 0 COMMENTS
Ahead of the publication of her much-anticipated debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Novel Studio alumna Deepa Anappara took time out of her busy schedule to talk to Novel Studio Course Director Emily Pedder about the inspiration behind the book.
Emily Pedder: Can you tell me a bit about the process of writing Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line? When did you know this was a story you wanted to tell? And how long did it take for you to feel you had the voice of the characters, particularly nine-year-old Jai?
Deepa Anappara
Deepa Anappara: The spark for the novel came from a spate of real-life disappearances of children in India, where I worked as a journalist for over eleven years. I used to write on education and human rights, as part of which I interviewed people who lived in impoverished neighbourhoods like the one in my novel. During that time, I used to hear stories of areas where as many as twenty or thirty children had disappeared over a span of two or three years; no effort had been made to find them because they were from poor families that had no voice or political power. I used to wonder what it was like for children to live in such neighbourhoods, knowing that they themselves could be snatched at any moment. How did they deal with that fear and uncertainty? How did they understand the unfairness and injustice they encountered in the world around them every day? Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is an attempt to answer those questions through fiction.
The children in my novel were very much inspired by the children I had interviewed as a reporter. Many of them were working, or weren’t able to study, because of their difficult financial or domestic circumstances. Despite this, they were often cheeky and witty, if not downright sarcastic. I drew from the memories of those interviews, and from the children I know in my life, to create the voices of my characters.
I first tried writing this novel in 2009, but set it aside, unsure whether I had the authority to write about a marginalised, neglected community. I returned to it in 2016. I had written several short stories by then with child narrators; I had also read a number of books and watched films with child narrators. Added to this were my own personal experiences of loss and uncertainty, and the greater understanding of mortality that perhaps comes with age – all these factors in some way gave me the permission to write Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, and shaped its narrative.
EP: Jai watches lots of reality TV cop shows and adopts the role of a detective in trying to find his missing classmate. This feels like a brilliant way in to telling this story. How did the cop show/detective strand come about?
Deepa: Jai’s interest in catching the criminal stems primarily from his own fears. He understands at some level, correctly, that as a child, he is in great danger. By constructing a story about being a detective, he is attempting to reclaim the agency he lacks in real life. It is also his way of dealing with a difficult situation.
Reality shows on TV are popular in India as it is elsewhere across the world, and the one about cops that Jai watches called Police Patrol is based on a similar, long-running TV show in India. It seemed natural that Jai would be inspired by what he watches on TV; popular culture in the form of TV and Hindi films do exert an influence on daily lives.
EP: You were previously an award-winning journalist in India. How difficult was it to make the leap from writing as a journalist to writing fiction?
Deepa: I didn’t have any formal grounding in either literature of writing, so I found it quite difficult to make that transition. I had to essentially learn how to write fiction, and I also had to learn how to read fiction much more closely. As a journalist, I had to be impartial and objective and relay opposing points of view to offer a balanced perspective. To write fiction, I had to teach myself how to write from a subjective point of view, to see the world only as a character sees it. But my experiences as a journalist were integral to writing Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line. I often visited neighbourhoods like the one I have written about, and I am indebted to the people who lived there, who invited me to their homes and offered me tea and chatted with me. If not for the generosity they had shown me, there is no way I could have written this book.
EP: You’ve written lots of award-winning short fiction. What do you think are the main differences, apart from length, in writing novels as opposed to short stories? And which do you prefer?
Deepa: I love both forms; I love short stories for how they can distil an entire life into a few pages, for their focus, and I love novels for their expansiveness. There are writers who have experimented with both forms, who challenge what each form can do, and make it much more difficult to describe the differences. In writing a short story, I can often see its shape in its entirety, but this is much more difficult with a novel.
EP: What’s been the most useful thing about studying creative writing?
Deepa: I learnt everything about the craft through these courses. It also gave me a community; I met fellow students whose critiques I trusted, and whose writing I admired. I found critiquing their work, and listening to their feedback, incredibly useful. It also gave me the permission to write.
EP: Do you have an imagined reader in mind when you write?
Deepa: When I am writing, the attempt is to fully inhabit the character and their perspective. The question of readership is something to be considered during the editing stage, but the reader in my head even at that point is amorphous, or perhaps a version of myself.
EP: What are you working on now?
Deepa: I am studying for a Creative-Critical Writing PhD at the moment, as part of which I am working on a historical novel.
EP: Thank you so much, Deepa! We wish you every success with your novel.
Deepa’s novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, will be published by Chatto & Windus on January 30, 2020.
A partial of her novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel. It is now being translated into 17 languages. Deepa’s short fiction has won the Dastaan Award, the Asian Writer Short Story Prize, the second prize in the Bristol Short Story awards, the third prize in the Asham awards, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, where she is currently studying for a Creative-Critical Writing PhD on a CHASE doctoral fellowship.
Deepa is also a graduate of City’s Novel Studio programme, of which Emily Pedder is Course Director.
Applications for 2020 Novel Studio students will open on February 1st with a deadline of 24th April 2020.
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Vintage signs Letters to a Writer of Colour edited by Anappara and Soomro
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AUG 6, 2021
BY SIAN BAYLEY
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Vintage has acquired an essay anthology examining the craft of writing through the lens of race and culture, edited by novelists Deepa Anappara (pictured) and Taymour Soomro.
Letters to a Writer of Colour will feature authors from around the world and will ask readers to think differently about how they read non-white, non-Western stories. World rights were bought in a joint deal by Charlotte Humphery for Vintage and Caitlin McKenna for Random House US from Matt Turner and Natasha Fairweather at RCW. The collection will be published in spring 2023.
The synopsis said: "Most creative writing handbooks examine how fiction works from within the dominant white, Western aesthetic currently accepted as the standard for good writing and storytelling. With this anthology of 13 essays by writers of colour, novelists Deepa Anappara (Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Chatto & Windus) and Taymour Soomro (Other Names for Love, Harvill Secker) will start a more inclusive conversation about storytelling traditions and craft, and encourage readers and writers to re-evaluate the codes and conventions that have over time shaped their assumptions about how fiction should be written."
Contributors are set to include Madeleine Thien writing on structure, Tahmima Anam on humour, Nadifa Mohamed on violence, Xiaolu Guo on translation and Amitava Kumar on authenticity.
Anappara and Soomro said: "As students of writing and as writers of colour, we discovered that most discussions on craft don’t take into account cultural and racial variations in storytelling traditions, and instead adopt a narrow approach towards what constitutes ‘good’ writing. This book is a part of our effort to create a more inclusive conversation about writing fiction. We hope this anthology will offer emerging writers, particularly those who don’t have access to writing courses or publishing industry networks, suggestions on the diverse ways in which we can tell our stories, centring our experiences and culture."
Humphery added: "Deepa and Taymour are remarkable writers who have spent years thinking about the ways in which creative writing is taught, assessed and valued in the West. They are the perfect authors to curate and lead a thrilling list of writers in this vital anthology. Letters to a Writer of Colour will be a classic text for aspiring and working writers and for curious readers everywhere. But it will also be essential reading for everyone in the publishing and creative writing industries. Publishers, agents, booksellers, teachers, universities and short courses: Read this book!"
Byline: Maureen Corrigan
Sometimes, voice is all.
The physical attributes of Nick Carraway, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Scout Finch are barely outlined by their creators; instead, it's their singular voices that give these characters their life and complexity.
So it is with Jai, a 9-year-old Indian boy who's the narrator and main character of Deepa Anappara's extraordinary debut novel, "Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line." Jai lives in a basti, a sprawling slum located within an unnamed city in India. The home he shares with his parents and older sister consists of one room covered by a tin roof dotted by holes; it's situated in the shadows of "hi-fi" luxury apartment buildings with "fancy names like Palm Springs and Mayfair and Golden Gate and Athena" where Jai's mother and other women from the basti work as nannies and house-cleaners. The most expensive possession in Jai's home is a TV, which he prizes because he's an avid fan of reality police shows. As Jai tells us in his cocky, funny, sweet, gullible and altogether distinctive voice:
"My favorite shows are ones that Ma says I'm not old enough to watch, like Police Patrol and Live Crime. Sometimes Ma switches off the TV right in the middle of a murder because she says it's too sick-making. But sometimes she leaves it on because she likes guessing who the evil people are and telling me how the policemen are sons-of-owls for never spotting criminals as fast as she can."
In the opening pages of this novel, Jai is presented with a macabre opportunity to practice what he calls his "detectiving" skills when a classmate named Bahadur vanishes. Rallying to his side are a pair of juvenile Dr. Watsons: Pari, a Hermione Granger-type smarty pants and Faiz, who hails from a minority Muslim family and is especially fearful of Djinns, spirits made of smokeless fire. Jai introduces these companions by telling us readers, "They are my friends and they can see the thoughts in my head." That's as good a definition of friendship as any.
Week by week, more children and teenagers are snatched from the basti. Panicked residents, frustrated that the police are doing little about this epidemic of kidnappings because the victims come from poor families, begin to turn on each other. Muslims, like Faiz and his family, become targets of violence; eventually, so, too, do those "hi-fi" people, perched above the basti in their glittering towers. It's up to Jai and his friends (or so Jai confidently thinks) to find the evildoers. To do so, the trio roam the crowded Bhoot Bazaar and dive into narrow alleys where goats, clothed in old sweaters against the winter chill, have covered the ground with their droppings. Jai even steals the ticket fare for Pari and himself to board the Purple Line train to search for Bahadur in the city center, even though neither child has ever gone so far from home on their own. Shrouding all these expeditions is an urban smog that, in the manner of Sherlock Holmes's London fog, obscures the truth.
Anappara began her career as a journalist in her native India, writing about the lives of children growing up in poverty. In an interview appended to the back of "Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line," Anappara says that, by some estimates, "as many as 180 children are said to go missing in India every day." Disturbed by the way the lurid details of the crimes (including human trafficking and organ peddling) overshadow their young victims, Anappara wanted to return the attention to the children themselves, as well as their "resilience, cheerfulness, and swagger." True to her desire to give voice to the most vulnerable, Anappara intersperses victims' accounts, told from their own perspective, within the main narrative.
The moving and unpredictable novel Anappara wrote defies easy classification. Given the sometimes capricious exploits of its young investigators, "Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line" could conceivably be shelved in the YA section of libraries and bookstores. Anappara also plays in a self-aware manner with the narrative structure: chapter headings, for instance, consist of cheeky sentence fragments, such as: "THREE WEEKS AGO I WAS ONLY A SCHOOLKID BUT-- ." Yet, the tale darkens into urban noir as it reaches its awful conclusion. By story's end, Jai has grown more hesitant, humbled by tragedy and evils beyond his once-childish imaginings. Even so, his remarkable voice retains a stubborn lightness, a will to believe in the possibility of deliverance in this fallen world.
As another great (and older and more cynical) fictional narrator once said, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Maureen Corrigan,who teaches literature at Georgetown University, is the book critic of NPR's Fresh Air.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 The Washington Post
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"In 'Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line,' an unforgettable voice emerges from an Indian slum." Washingtonpost.com, 6 Feb. 2020, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A613326233/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=30a1184b. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.
Anappara, Deepa DJINN PATROL ON THE PURPLE LINE Random House (Adult Fiction) $27.00 2, 4 ISBN: 978-0-593-12919-7
A debut novel by an Indian journalist tells a story full of humor, warmth, and heartbreak about children growing up in a Delhi shantytown.
The narrator of most of this entrancing novel is 9-year-old Jai, who lives with his parents and older sister, Runu-Didi, in a basti, or slum, near the terminus of Delhi's Purple Line train tracks. When a school friend, a shy boy named Bahadur, disappears, Jai, an avid fan of TV crime shows, goes into action. He and his two best friends, a bright girl named Pari and a hardworking boy called Faiz, investigate. Young as they are, they know all too well how little regard the police have for people like them. Their basti is reminiscent of the Mumbai neighborhood depicted in Katherine Boo's Beyond the Beautiful Forevers: riven with grinding poverty yet bursting with life and always under threat of being bulldozed if the powers that be are unhappy. Jai has loving parents who work tirelessly to support their two kids, but he also knows how to chew a twig "to fool my tummy into thinking more food is on its way" when his next meal is uncertain. There's an almost Harry Potter-ish vibe to the relationship among the three intrepid kids, and Jai's voice is irresistible: funny, vivid, smart, and yet always believably a child's point of view. Anappara paints all of her characters, even the lost ones, with deep empathy, and her prose is winningly exuberant. But she also brings a journalist's eye to her story, one that is based on the shocking numbers of children who disappear from Indian cities every day. Jai wants to believe that Faiz is right when he says Bahadur was spirited away by a mythical djinn because the reality of his fate, and those of other children even closer to Jai, is too dreadful.
Engaging characters, bright wit, and compelling storytelling make a tale that's bleak at its core and profoundly moving.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Anappara, Deepa: DJINN PATROL ON THE PURPLE LINE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2019, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A605549577/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=eda2df82. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Deepa Anappara. Random House, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-12919-7
Anappara's wirry, resonant debut tracks a series of child disappearances from an Indian slum through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy. Jai lives with his friends Pari and Faiz in a slum next to a rubbish dump and the crowded Bhoot Bazaar, part of an unnamed city constantly beset by smog. An opening tale of a local benevolent ghost named Mental introduces the children's shared magical . thinking. When Jai and his friends learn that one of their classmates, Bahadur, has been missing for several days, Jai, a fan of police shows, decides that he and his friends will do their own detective work and find Bahadur since the police show little interest in the matter. Jai's carefree nature lends a lighthearted tone to an increasingly grim tale as more children disappear and his team of sleuths find evidence pointing to a serial killer. His quest is aided by Pari's voracious reading habits, which make her the better detective, and Faiz's Muslim faith, which helps them stay on course when his community is blamed for the kidnappings. Interspersed with the trio's investigation are single chapters devoted to each of the disappeared children. The prose perfectly captures all the characters' youthful voices, complete with some Hindi and Urdu terms, whose meanings, if not immediately obvious, become clear with repetition. Anappara's complex and tale showcases a strong talent. (Feb.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line." Publishers Weekly, vol. 266, no. 50, 9 Dec. 2019, pp. 123+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A609310998/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=60f45e17. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line. By Deepa Anappara. Feb. 2020. 352p. Random, $27 (9780593129197).
Enamored of police reality shows, nine-year-old Jai decides to become a detective himself when a classmate goes missing from his impoverished urban Indian settlement. Hoping to solve the case, he enlists the aid of his two best friends, Faiz and Pari. Their mettle is tested when other children begin disappearing, and the corrupt local police ignore the situation. Faiz, a Muslim, is convinced that an evil djinn is responsible, while Pari pooh-poohs that notion and Jai equivocates. But if not a djinn, then who or what? Clearly something evil is at work as more and more children disappear; finally, even Jai's older sister becomes a victim. Jai bitterly decides he's not a detective after all, and even the solution of the mystery fails to bring him closure. The author has done an excellent job of telling her sometimes sad story in Jai's credible nine-year-old voice, and her treatment of her setting, with its ingrained social inequities, is a model of verisimilitude. Best, however, is her characterization, especially that of Jai, who comes to life on the page to live on in readers' memories.--Michael Cart
YA: Teens interested in Indian life and culture will find this a rewarding read, notable for its richly realized setting and empathetic characters. MC.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Cart, Michael. "Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line." Booklist, vol. 116, no. 5, 1 Nov. 2019, p. 33. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A608072818/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ca0ffa10. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.
Anappara, Deepa LETTERS TO A WRITER OF COLOR Random House (NonFiction None) $17.00 3, 7 ISBN: 9780593449417
A loosely epistolary collection elucidating the joys and challenges of being a writer of color.
Although the essays are titled using craft elements like structure or character, the majority of the pieces sprawl vividly beyond their stated intentions. For example, Soomro's wise and vulnerable essay, "On Origin Stories," and Tahmima Anam's devastatingly hilarious and poignant essay, "On Humor," contain lessons on authenticity that are far more useful than an essay formally dedicated to the topic itself. In "On Character," Tiphanie Yanique creates not just a lesson on craft, but also a gorgeously frank celebration of the power and knowledge people of color inherently bring to the page. "It is important to me," she writes, "that I begin by making plain that I am not revealing any damn thing to you, audience, that you do not already know .The gist: since before your own birth this wisdom of character development has been inside of you. The world destroyed you and your people before you in order for you to learn it. Do not let the world take it from you now." Equally astounding is the generosity with which many of the contributors allow readers into their personal lives. Anappara, for example, candidly describes the self-loathing she felt while working on a novel by the bedside of her terminally ill sister, explaining how the writing both kept her sane and made her feel a kind of "madness." Kiese Laymon writes about the cruelty he inflicted on himself and his loved ones while grappling with years of manipulation at the hands of his former editor. While the book is addressed to writers of color, artists of all races will benefit from the honesty, profundity, and munificence radiating from each of these letters. Other contributors include Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Xiaolu Guo, Myriam Gurba, and Mohammed Hanif.
A stunningly personal and practical compilation of literary and life advice.
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"Anappara, Deepa: LETTERS TO A WRITER OF COLOR." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A731562296/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50bc0cf4. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.