The Centre is a novel about a mysterious language learning centre and a Pakistani woman in London who is drawn into its strange world. Anisa wants to translate “great works of literature”, but actually translates Bollywood films, complains about life with her best friend Naima, and ends up with a white boyfriend, Adam, who seems to know a surprising number of languages fluently. After Adam learns Urdu almost instantly, Anisa needs to know his secret, but it turns out to be a strange language learning facility called the Centre, expensive and so secret you can only tell one person about it. Drawn by the promise of translation, Anisa signs up, follows its weird rules, and starts to uncover the secrets of the Centre, intoxicated by her mentor, Shiba.
This is a book that immediately draws you in, with a gripping writing style and opening chapters that give you plenty of clues that things are going to get stranger, especially with this concept of being able to learn a language so quickly. The blurb does give a fair bit of this away, meaning you are filled with unease even before Anisa goes to the Centre, but the novel also packs a lot of other ideas in too: thoughts about translation, privilege, race, class, and fulfilment that are woven throughout. Anisa is a complex narrator, often self-centred and unaware, trying to think about things but also justifying stuff to herself however she needs, and these become relevant to the book as a whole as it seems that the Centre’s secrets fit in with these elements too.
The twist is set up pretty well, so it is something you can guess, but also suits the suggested ominous tone with almost a darkly comic edge, satirising at times what rich people actually think is acceptable. The book doesn’t really answer the questions it raises, but rather invites you to consider some of the complexities and ambiguities within, like the act of translation. It is an entertaining ride that it is easy to get hooked by.
Fiendfully Reading 
You must be logged in to post a comment.