A short review of Tahmima Anam's "A Golden Age"

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My boyfriend and I listened to Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age rather than read it. It was our first audio novel, and an enjoyable experience too – thanks to Tania Rodrigues’ deft reading.

We often talked back at the main protagonist, a mother caught up in Bangladesh’s fight for independence from Pakistan in the 1970s: “Oh Rehana, don’t be such a goodie goodie!”

Anam’s style is serviceable. Her war, however, is a bit too black and white: Pakistanis are bad, Bangladeshis are good; rich people are evil, poor people are martyrs. Perhaps later books in the trilogy improve upon this one.

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