The Centre -- Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, Hardcover

In this "dazzling" speculative debut, a London-based Pakistani translator furthers her stalled career by attending a mysterious language school that boasts near-instant fluency--but at a secret, sinister cost (Gillian Flynn)

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, interrogating 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?

Author: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
Publisher: Gillian Flynn Books
Published: 07/11/2023
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.06h x 5.98w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781638930549

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 02/01/2023 pg. 6
Library Journal 05/01/2023 pg. 72
Publishers Weekly 05/22/2023
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2023
Shelf Awareness 07/14/2023