Temporary People

Market worth: 399

Book Condition: New

Temporary People

Author : Deepak Unnikrishnan

134 reviews

Highlights

English

Language

Temporary People

Edition

256

Pages

9780143441939

ISBN-13

0143441939

ISBN-10

Thomas Dunne Book

Publisher

198 mm

Height

129 mm

Width

18 mm

Thickness

Paperback

Binding

Description

In the United Arab Emirates, foreign nationals constitute over 80 percent of the population. Brought in to construct and serve the towering monuments to wealth that punctuate the skylines of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, this labor force is not given the option of citizenship. Until now, the humanitarian crisis of the so-called ‘guest workers’ of the Gulf has barely been addressed in fiction. With his stunning, mind-altering debut novel, Deepak Unnikrishnan delves into their histories, myths, struggles and triumphs. Combining the linguistic invention of Salman Rushdie and the satirical vision of George Saunders, Unnikrishnan presents twenty-eight linked stories, moving from construction workers who shapeshift into luggage and escape a labor camp to a woman who stitches back together the bodies of those who’ve fallen from buildings in progress, to a man who grows ideal workers designed to live twelve years and then perish until they don’t and found a rebel community in the desert. With this polyphony of voices, Unnikrishnan maps a new, unruly global English and gives personhood back to the anonymous workers of the Gulf. His debut marks the arrival of a major talent.