Seventy books for 70 years
THE BBC has picked 70 books – 10 from each decade – to represent the 70 years of the Queen’s reign.
It says that “the big Jubilee read novels were chosen by a panel of Commonwealth experts, academics, booksellers and librarians, assembled by the Reading Agency”. It adds that “spanning 31 countries and six continents, this truly international collection is a fitting tribute to the most widely travelled monarch in history”.
There are some books that caught my attention. Between 1952-1961, they are – The Guide by RK Narayan (India); To Sir, With Love by ER Braithwaite (Guyana); and A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul (Trinidad and Tobago/England),
There is Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain (India), whom I met in London towards the end of her life for she was the mother of director Waris Hussein.
Between 1972-1981, I would pick Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
(England/India) – it is odd he was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, considering he already has a knighthood from 2007.
From 1992-2001, I would choose A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (India/ Canada); The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (India); and Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Canada), which has been adapted for the West End.
From 2002-2011, I would select Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka (Sri Lanka).
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (1964, Nigeria) is on the list, though I would have picked his debut novel from 1958, Things Fall Apart.
I am sorry one of my favourite novels, Vikram Seth’s
A Suitable Boy, published in 1993 and adapted for TV by Mira Nair, is not on the list.