Name: Author Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi discusses The Centre
Start: 2023-07-14T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2023-07-14T20:00:00-04:00
Location: Solid State Books

Author Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi discusses The Centre

Solid State Books is one of DC's finest independent Black bookstores, with locations in the historic H Street NE and the 14th Street NW corridors. Offering a wide selection of new books for adults & children, and featuring literary gifts of all kinds. Serving coffee, beer, wine, & snacks at 600 H St NE from 10am-9pm every day. Open at 9am on the weekends. 180914th Street location is open 10-9pm, with 7pm closing on Sun & Mon. Contact us at books@solidstatebooksdc.com

Solid State Books

Join author Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi as she discusses her debut novel, The Centre  at Solid State Books on H St. with author Vera Kurian.

“What an absolutely stunning and unique novel! Ayesha has written a book that is not only thrilling, but also deeply thought provoking, a combination that is truly rare. And the voice! It’s dazzling.” - Gillian Flynn

This ambitious debut novel tackles South Asian diasporic identity, the politics of language &amp; translation, and cultural appropriation with nuance and care without ever veering pedantic in its messaging or sacrificing accessibility.Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of “great works of literature,” but mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood movies and living off her parents’ generous allowance. Adding to her growing sense of inadequacy, her mediocre white boyfriend, Adam, has successfully leveraged his savant-level aptitude for languages into an enviable career. But when Adam learns to speak Urdu practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.Adam begrudgingly tells her about The Centre, an elite, invite-only program that guarantees complete fluency in any language, in just ten days. This sounds, to Anisa, like a step toward the life she’s always wanted. Stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world, she enrolls and undergoes The Centre’s strange and rigorous processes. But as Anisa enmeshes herself further within the organization, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the hidden cost of its services.By turns darkly comic and surreal, and with twists as page-turning as they are shocking, The Centre journeys through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interro-gating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation along the way. Through Anisa’s addictive tale of striving and self-actualization, Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi ultimately asks the reader: What is the real price we pay in our scramble to the center?

Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi has previously published short stories, reviews, translations, essays, monologues, and poetry. She has also worked as an editor and a playwright. Ayesha was contributing editor for the Serial Productions podcast The Trojan Horse Affair, and has been anthologized by Tilted Axis Press, Peepal Tree Press, Influx Press, EMC, and Oberon Books, and published in The Independent, Ceasefire, The Theatre Times, Wasafiri, and Media Diversified. Her plays and monologues have had rehearsed readings and stagings at venues including the Rich Mix, Theatre503, and the Tristan Bates Theatre in London, and the Impact Hub in Birmingham, and she's also written for BBC Radio 4. Ayesha is from Karachi and lives in London.

Vera Kurian is a writer and scientist based in Washington DC. Her debut novel, Never Saw Me Coming, was an Edgar Award nominee &amp; was named one of the New York Times’ Best Thrillers of 2021. Her short fiction has been published in magazines such as Glimmer Train, Day One, and The Pinch. She has a PhD in Social Psychology, where she studied intergroup relations, ideology, and quantitative methods.

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Author Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi discusses The Centre

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