Hungry Ghosts: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick

Product Information

He is also the author of three works of fiction for young adults: Littletown Secrets, The Beast of Kukuyo and The Repenters. Littletown Secrets, his first book to be published, which he both wrote and illustrated in 2013, was awarded the title of Best Children's Book of 2013, by the Trinidad Guardian. [6] It was followed by The Repenters (2016), which was shortlisted for the Bocas Prize and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and the OCM Bocas Prize. [1] [9] His 2018 book, The Beast of Kukuyo, won second place for the Burt Award for Caribbean literature. [1] Mikey, for a few seconds, gave a bewildered look at the muddle of bodies before him. Raised the plank high.

The plot pivots on Dalton Changoor’s disappearance, which prompts Marlee to pay Hans extra to keep watch overnight – money Hans wants to buy his family a plot of land for a house in Bell. Shweta realises, too late, she never “exactly agreed” to Hans taking the post. There isn’t a dud moment or misplaced word. Hosein – a biology teacher who writes poems and stories by night – has a poet’s gift for similes (“the dawnlight appeared as a single painted fingernail hoisting itself over the mountain range, glowing hot and focused as a soldering iron”). But his writing is at its electric best when the weather is as stormy as his characters’ emotions. Sometimes, images are wonderful, striking, unusual – but when a writer is doing this almost on every line, there is something which gets in the way of the necessary forward propulsion of a novelFrom an unforgettable new voice in Caribbean literature, a sweeping story of two families colliding in 1940s Trinidad--and a chilling mystery that shows how interconnected their lives truly are Kevin Jared Hosein's title Hungry Ghosts has its origin in Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. According to the Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, hungry ghost, or preta"literally means 'one who has gone away from here' and is used to indicate the disembodied spirit of a dead person, especially during the first ten days after death." The word is also used to refer to a ghost, generally the spirit of a great sinner, whose unfulfilled desire or hunger compels it to wander in search of satiety, straddling the worlds of the living and the dead. Biting the Hand , by Julia Lee (Holt). In this affecting memoir, a literature professor whose parents emigrated from South Korea writes about her “inheritance” of what Koreans call han—a culturally specific mixture of rage and shame—as well as the insidious tendency of “racial shame” to separate “people of color from one another.” Lee mixes personal anecdotes, including experiences of racism, with analyses of racially charged historical events, such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots, during which “thousands of Korean-owned businesses were looted and torched.” She argues that white supremacy has been bolstered by a “culture of scarcity,” in which “there’s only a certain amount of bandwidth available in the American consciousness to deal with racial oppression.” Changing this will involve rejecting an entire “racial imaginary” that makes room only for the broad categories of white and nonwhite people.

Lyrically narrated and inspired by storytelling traditions, Hungry Ghost is astonishing -- my first SIX-STAR book of 2023. It’s hard to summon words to convey how resonant and remarkable this book is. The man thought about it for a few seconds. ‘OK. Go ahead.’ Then pointed to Krishna. ‘But this one says another word, I’m phoning the police.’ Good Gawd. This was ferocious. Am I biased because of my Trinidadian heritage? Nah, it’s a bloody fantastic book. If this doesn’t make the Booker longlist, I’m gonna riot haha. The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother. A trio of tilapia approached Krishna’s hand. ‘And they don’t bite your finger?’ Krishna asked, leaning over to watch.I thought this had some really solid storylines and they all tied in well together at the end. There were some really well written parts, and the plot was interesting to follow. Hungry Ghosts opens with four boys doing a blood pact that will make them brothers for the rest of their lives. Do they know what this pact means? How will it impact their individual lives? That is exactly what we find out in this book. The story in itself is really quite depressing whereby one unhappy event leads to a more unhappy one. It all begins with the disappearance of the local "bigwig" Dalton Changoor. His wife, Marlene, is quite content not to see him return but when she starts being harassed she invents a more pressing reason for her handyman, Hansraj, to stay at her home. Once there the two begin an affair. This affects Hans' whole family and one disaster leads to another. Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.

Mikey went over to the tail end of the locomotive and grabbed a wooden plank. He already knew that he had riled Tarak enough for him to consider taking a swing. Mikey was ready with the plank.Krishna’s father, Hans, works just up on the hill on the grand estate of Dalton Changoor and his younger wife, Marlee. Their opulent manor is filled with goose-feather cushions and velveteen rugs, and from their box radio drift the sounds of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. One stormy night, Dalton vanishes. Marlee, understandably fearful for her safety, asks kindhearted, fit Hans—with whom she is infatuated—to be her night watchman. It’s an epic setup for a collision of poverty and wealth. We’re quite multicultural; the east Indian population (about half the country) is a mixture of Hindu and Christian, with some Muslims. There has been a lot of integration. There’s still some prejudice. For example, when Hindus die, they cremate [the bodies], but during Covid-19, cremations were stopped. Research [eventually] showed that cremation didn’t really spread the virus, but it was far into the pandemic before they allowed it again. So you had bodies piling up and people unable to complete their funeral customs. I’m not religious, but the household I grew up in was highly observant of Hinduism. The maternal side of my family is Hindu, my paternal side a mix of Presbyterian and Muslim. Krishna reached his hand into the water, his eyes closed in concentration. He tried to do as Tarak said – to release his hand from his own body. Hosein's characters warrant investment, as their hopes and fears strike a chord. Yet a looming cloud of violence and narcissism pervades the island, prompting the reader's urge to scream a warning to the imperiled characters or to hold their breath, hoping against the odds that somehow the goodness of humanity will prevail. Sadly, it rarely does. Hungry Ghosts is an intriguing read that forces us to confront the harsh realities of life and its varying juxtapositions of violence and beauty, love and hate, faith and despair... continued