History's Angel

"[A] wonderfully restrained, shrewdly comic novel . . . Ms. Hasan grants this hero such a complete inner life--and surrounds him with such finely drawn characters--that the very air he breathes seems dense with thoughts and longings . . . There is as much history, then, in this quiet novel as there is in any sweeping epic by Amitav Ghosh. And as much tension--between the fading past and the frenzied present--as there is in Aravind Adiga's 'The White Tiger' . . . Retrograde or not, the quotidian world of Delhi, 'the city on which the apocalypse descends every day, ' is conjured up by Ms. Hasan with acuity and palpable affection." --The Wall Street Journal

"Erudite and languid ... Hasan frequently blends her chronicle of Alif's problems with insightful internal monologues, in which he reflects on the country's history and simmering anti-Muslim sentiments. Hasan's layering of history and personal drama accrues a subtle but undeniable power." --Publishers Weekly

"Hasan bitingly dramatizes the increasing religious intolerance brewing in modern India . . . the novel efficiently shows class and religion can make or break a man." --Booklist

"Hasan's honest and delicate portrayal of a Muslim community in contemporary Delhi is told through the eyes of a middle-aged teacher whose life is upended after a small outburst. It is an eye-opening story that will move readers with its sharp observations and crafty writing." --Debutiful

"A portrait of an individual as well as a nation in transition, History's Angel traces the fading of the secular promise of the Indian nation--and the richness of its multifaith culture--under its current, Hindu nationalist regime, and the growing intolerance in society . . . History's Angel exemplifies and makes a case for the role of literature in preserving the marginal and diverse aspects of a society." - Electric Literature

"Hasan's prose is introspective, carefully observed, and imbued with more than what is said . . . [Her] gaze is clear-sighted and unflinching." --Indian Express on A DAY IN THE LIFE

"Remarkable and insightful . . . Engrossing . . . Elegant." --National Herald on A DAY IN THE LIFE

"Genius... one of the finest Indian writers alive." --Firstpost

"Craftily written . . . The elegant, pondered and deep-reaching prose of this collection allows subversive humour to surface effortlessly . . . The 230 pages are filled with underlineable gems . . . Hasan explores many of the relevant experiences of life in present-day." --The Hindu on A DAY IN THE LIFE

"HISTORY'S ANGEL is a seething seismic tale about the disturbing times the Muslims of India are living through, in ever growing dread of worse to come. Told in a subdued, sad, ironical tenor, it is compassionate without being sentimental. The novel asserts humanity and hope in the face of widening fissures through its main protagonist who, drawing sustenance from a deep historical perspective, refuses to play the victim and negotiates the situation empathetically." --Geetanjali Shree, author of the International Booker Prize-winning TOMB OF SAND

"It gives me no pleasure to write that History's Angel is extremely timely. In this work of fiction, the protagonist is accused of teaching 'too much Muslim history' after taking his students on a field trip to a Mughal monument. In real life, things are actually worse: The National Council of Educational Research and Training in India has recently announced its decision to excise the entire chapter on the Mughal Empire from class twelve history textbooks throughout the country. History's Angel helps us view these erasures of the past through a living lens. With sensitivity and nuance, Anjum Hasan draws us into the world of Alif, a Muslim history teacher in contemporary Delhi. Even as Alif prefers to immerse himself in the endless complexities of the Subcontinental past, the boundaries of his present reality slowly shrink under the relentless onslaught of contemporary Hindu nationalism." --Daisy Rockwell

"This absorbing novel trespasses, from sentence to sentence, the boundaries that usually demarcate the grandeur of the historical from the tedium, humour, and disappointments of ordinary human life. Domesticity, everyday routine, and our historical pasts and futures are conjoined here tantalisingly, with impressive skill, and with real tenderness." --Amit Chaudhuri

"A wonderful Delhi novel for our times, a Shahr-e-Ashob of the new India. History's Angel is eloquent, brave, elegaic and ultimately, heartbreaking. This remarkable novel reminded me of both of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi and Anita Desai's In Custody, and confirms Anjum Hasan as one of our finest and most important writers.
" --William Dalrymple

"A shimmering, intelligent rage roils under a cool surface in History's Angel, which manages at once to be 'made so insistently, so noisily, of now' and inhabit layers of history. Hasan's eye is sharp and her aim is unerring. This is a work of sublime elegance." --Shruti Swamy, author of THE HOUSE IS A BODY