Saikat Majumdar

The Firebird is a deliciously dark, hauntingly heart-breaking story told from a little boy's point of view.

Saiket Majumdar successfully portrays the age at which children can be terribly judgmental of people around them and the little things they can do that can affect and alter lives. However at many points in the book, the author moves on to show grown-up characters judging others based on the way they themselves have been conditioned, which makes me ask myself, "Do we ever really grow up?” Or “Are we all just children of different age groups?"

A Must Read…
… (más)

Saikat Majumdar’s Play House was released under a different title in India, but the new title is a perfect play on words for the English edition. The eponymous Play House might be the theater where ten-year-old Ori has hidden to see his mother act. It might be the home run by his grandmother, where Mom will soon be unwelcome. Maybe it's the apartment, never quite a home, where mother plays at being mom. Or is it the house in the young boy's mind, where he puts together half-images, draws half-conclusions, and brings the whole construction down on everyone?

This haunting novel is filled with vividly real characters, from political bullies to fumbling deviant, from family’s strictness and love to street boys, stage boys and secrets, and from childhood to young adult. Ori’s mother tries so hard to maintain her profession in the face of local disapproval. His father disappears into distrust. His grandmother simultaneously cares for and disregards the young boy. And Ori, on the verge of adulthood, separating from childhood and building a sense of his own self, watches the plays in his head, on the stage and in the world. There he builds misinterpretation on mistake like small flames flickering to fire, to burn it all away.

Play House is a vividly real depiction of lives and places, a haunting journey through a young man’s wounded adolescence, and a poetically terrifying construct where youth is the rehearsal and the doors stay open at the end.

Disclosure: I was given a copy by the publisher and I offer my honest review.… (más)