The Association of Small Bombs

I just finished reading ‘The Association of Small Bombs’, Karan Mahajan’s second novel. I really enjoyed it and, apparently, so did many others:

National Book Award Finalist
Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award
Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award
Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize
One of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of the Year
One of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists
A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year
PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Fiction
Simpson Family Literary Prize Finalist
Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 
Longlisted for the FT/Oppenheimer Emerging Voices Award

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Buzzfeed, Esquire, New York magazine, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The AV Club, The Fader, Redbook, Electric Literature, Book Riot, Bustle, Good magazine, PureWow, and PopSugar

We read from time to time about terrorist attacks in western cities but hear little about many similar attacks in other parts of the world including South Asia as though we consider it to be normal. This is an expansive and humane novel that explores the makers of those ‘small bombs’, the victims, the lives of those who place the bombs and the long-lasting effects of the bombs.

When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, pick up their family’s television set at a repair shop with their friend Mansoor Ahmed one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb—one of the many “small” bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world—detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys, to the devastation of their parents. Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb. After a brief stint at university in America, Mansoor returns to Delhi, where his life becomes entangled with the mysterious and charismatic Ayub, a fearless young activist whose own allegiances and beliefs are more malleable than Mansoor could imagine. Woven among the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the gripping tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland.

The book explores not only the lives of the victims but the inner lives of the terrorists – their ex-girlfriends, their diabetic parents and their dreams and doubts. It’s interesting that none of the terrorists in this novel are radicalized Muslims. Instead they political activists in pursuit of independence for Kashmir or an end to political violence against Muslims under the government of Narendra Modi.

As I said at the beginning, I really enjoyed this book and you might enjoy it too. The New York Times has an excellent review which you can find HERE.