In the Light of What We Know
ISBN 0374175624 | |
Author | ISBN 978-1447231233 | |
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In the Light of What We Know is the first novel by Zia Haider Rahman. First published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, it was released in the spring of 2014 to international critical acclaim and earned Rahman the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Britain's oldest literary prize, previous winners of which include Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie and Cormac McCarthy.[1] The novel has been translated into many languages, including Czech, Greek and Arabic.
Outline
Much of the novel is set during the
The story ranges from
Critical reception
Writing in
In a 4,000-word review for The New Yorker, the critic James Wood described Rahman as "a deep and subtle storyteller" and praised the novel as "astonishingly achieved… Isn't this kind of thinking — worldly and personal, abstract and concrete, essayistic and dramatic — exactly what the novel is for? How it justifies itself as a form?… In the Light of What We Know is what Salman Rushdie once called an 'everything novel.' It is wide-armed, hospitable, disputatious, worldly, cerebral. Ideas and provocations abound on every page."[8]
The Australian literary critic Louise Adler, reviewing the novel for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote, "My faith in fiction has been restored… Rahman writes brilliantly and hilariously about British class-consciousness… a satisfyingly and richly argumentative novel… In the Light of What We Know is my international book of 2014. It is a novel that makes sense of the past decade, its geopolitical tensions and the way we as hapless individuals experience those complexities."[9]
The novel received wide critical acclaim internationally.
Criticisms of In the Light of What We Know include Hannah Harris Green, writing in The Los Angeles Review of Books in a review titled "What Female Characters?" that, while "Rahman has a brilliant mind, capable of understanding many kinds of people. I hope one day he endeavors to try and understand women. Otherwise, for all his uniqueness, he will be yet another respected male author who would rather speak for women than to them."[25]
"In the Light of What We Know appeared in several lists of best books for 2014, including in The Observer,[26] The Times Literary Supplement, Slate,[27] Kirkus Reviews, NPR,[28] The Daily Telegraph,[29] The Atlantic, Barnes and Noble Review and The New Yorker. Selecting it as one of three great novels she read in 2014, the critic Wendy Lesser wrote that the novel reminded her of Joseph Conrad because of "the layers of narrators (there are two) and the contemplative weave of politics and fiction…The characters' complicated lives, which are at the foreground of the book, persuasively justify everything."[30] Philip French described it as "dazzling… what Henry James called a 'large, loose, baggy monster' — but for our century."[31] Rebecca Mead of The New Yorker wrote that the novel was "talky and intellectual, while also unfolding a riveting drama: a deeply satisfying book,"[32] and that it was "a 21st-century novel written with the ambition of scope of a 19th-century novel, and bearing the seriousness of purpose of a 20th-century one."[33]
In the Light of What We Know earned Rahman the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Britain's oldest literary prize.[34] It was long-listed for the Orwell Prize 2015,[35] the Guardian First Book award 2014,[36] the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2015,[37] shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2014[38] and nominated for the Folio Prize 2015.[39] Rahman was shortlisted for the New Writer of the Year award at the UK National Book Awards 2014.[40] The novel won the inaugural International Ranald McDonald Prize 2016.[41]
References
- ^ Alison Flood. "James Tait Black prize goes to Zia Haider Rahman's debut novel". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
- ^ Retrieved December 27, 2014.
- ^ Retrieved December 27, 2014.
- ^ Jonathan Lee (23 October 2014). "How Do You Know?". Guernica.
- ^ (April 11, 2014), "The Banker, the Visitor, His Wife and Her Lover", The New York Times. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Oates, Joyce Carol (October 23, 2014), "Witness to the Unknowable", The New York Review of Books. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Oates, Joyce Carol (November 26, 2014), "Books of the Year", The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Wood, James (May 19, 2014), "The World As We Know It: Zia Haider Rahman's dazzling début", The New Yorker. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Preston, Alex (October 23, 2014), "Zia Haider Rahman's 'epic and intensely moving' debut", The Observer. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Kumar, Amitava (April 11, 2014), "The Banker, the Visitor, His Wife and Her Lover", The New York Times. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Clark, Alex (May 11, 2014), "In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman – review", The Guardian. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- Intelligent Life. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Deb, Sandipan (August 4, 2014), "Love, Reality, Truth and Gödel", Mint/Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Prasannarajan, S (June 13, 2014), "A Groundbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", Open. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Gordon, Edmund (July 2, 2014), "The Customs of His Tribe", The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Chishty-Mujahid, Nadya (July 13, 2014), "Cover Story: In the Light of What We Know", Dawn. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ O'Grady, Megan (May 27, 2014), "The Best Books to Read This Summer", Vogue. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ O'Grady, Megan (July 23, 2014), "Four American Authors Make the Booker List", Vogue. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ Mancusi, Nicholas (April 28, 2014), "The Shadow of History", The Daily Beast. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ DWDD Boek van de maand april 2015.
- ^ Noiville, Florence (July 19, 2016), "Zia Haider Rahman à l’intersection des parallèles" Le Monde
- ^ Even, Kathleen (July 1, 2016), "A LA LUMIÈRE DE CE QUE NOUS TRAVERSONS", Libération
- ^ Tanette, Sylvie (April 5, 2016), "A la lumière de ce que nous savons" de Zia Haider Rahman, le roman total de nos crises contemporaines", ‘’Les Inrockuptibles’’
- ^ Harris Green, Hanna (9 September 2014). "What Female Characters?". Los Angeles Review of Books.
- ^ (December 1, 2014), "Writers Pick the Best Books of 2014", The Observer. Retrieved oDecember 21, 2014.
- ^ (November 30, 2014), "Best Books 2014: Slate Staff Picks", Slate. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ (December 3, 2014), "Great Reads 2014", NPR. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
- ^ (November 30, 2014), "Christmas books 2014: Best books to read", The Daily Telegraph. Retrieve December 21, 2014.
- ^ (December 17, 2014), "Six Books We Missed This Year", The Atlantic. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ (December 1, 2014), "Writers pick the best books of 2014", Guardian. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Mead, Rebecca (December 23, 2014), "Best Books 2014", The New Yorker. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Mead, Rebecca (December 10, 2014), "Best Things They Read 2014", Barnes and Noble Review. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ "James Tait Black prize goes to Zia Haider Rahman's debut novel", The Guardian, August 17, 2015.
- ^ Prize 2015. March 25, 2015, Orwell Prize
- ^ "Guardian first book award 2014", The Guardian, August 8, 2014. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
- ^ Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. April 25, 2015.
- ^ About the shortlist October 2, 2014 "Goldsmiths". Retrieved December 14, 2014.
- ^ "Folio Prize Reveals 80 Titles", Guardian December 14, 2014. Retrieved 2014-12-14
- ^ "Specsavers National Book Awards". 31 October 2014. Archived from the original on 18 November 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
- ^ "Hollands Dieps congratulates Zia Haider Rahman", 18 September 2016.