Shahriar Shaams

Shahriar Shaams has written for SUSPECT, Third Lane Mag (forthcoming), Commonwealth Writers’ Adda, Six Seasons Review, and Jamini. Find him on twitter @shahriarshaams.

On Prince Harry's memoir: Spare us the drivel, please

Harry’s dig at the paparazzi is the underlying theme of his life-story.

To be human for the corporation: Olga Ravn’s ‘The Employees’

These characters, human and machine alike, are invited to provide witness statements about their working environment to a commission, which form the entirety of the novel—a design that helps Ravn bring about an atmosphere of tension.

Blurry in Berlin: Amit Chaudhuri’s ‘Sojourn’

Amit Chaudhuri is one of our most gifted writers, a Bengali novelist and musician with an accomplished repertoire.

Andy Warhol & Truman Capote talk out their anxieties

Andy Warhol suggested they tape their conversations on his Sony Walkman, to which Truman Capote agrees.

Hilary Mantel gave richness to historical fiction

She wrote with vitality, a realness that seemed somewhat dangerous on paper. 

Race and unease in Mohsin Hamid’s ‘The Last White Man’

In The Last White Man, Hamid uses an anodyne, clinical voice to set an atmosphere of unease of a white society panicking within, as a wave of darkness intrudes their skin, turning them impure, perhaps wild.

Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Lapvona’: A fairy tale for realists

Lapvona has paupers becoming princes, severe environmental disruptions adding to the owe of the common folk, and the old lady acting as a witch and healer, who serves in the role of a fairy godmother, albeit with a modern touch.

At the Blums’—A review of 'The Netanyahus' by Joshua Cohen

Cohen’s book confidently deals with the comedy of the Jewish family.