Neale Desousa Recommends

“With all that is going on in Iraq and the world, all the Harry Potter and chick Lit discussions need to take a hiatus,” Desousa says. “Not that I do not read strictly for entertainment. But we are running out of time and in this frame of mind I went out and bought The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer. It’s a story of a white South African woman’s journey to the village of her Muslim lover. I think there is no way to understand a religion without experiencing the culture that nurtures it and this book takes its time (another virtue one needs to develop when reading serious lit). It’s a slim novel and it’s amazing how I am not feeling rushed to finish it, but instead am savoring it, one awkward compromise at a time. Ever since I read The House Gun, I have liked Gordimer’s writing. Her treatment of gay men in the novel was so subtly woven into the broader conflict of race.”

Born in Kenya, raised in Goa, corrupted and educated in Bombay, Neale Desousa now lives in Los Angeles. His work has been published in Chiron Review, Slipstream, and is forthcoming in Swink.