Meera Nair | Writer
Reviews
VIDEO
The Washington Post
"So precisely does Meera Nair depict the farfetched that it becomes convincing, and so tenderly does she hover over
her characters that they become not caricatures but fully human.
Video is Nair's first collection of short stories; it is
also a whole world, with all its richness and variety. Her stories do not merely include Hindus, Muslims and Christians;
they do not merely stretch across the subcontinent from Bangalore to Bangladesh; they do not merely mingle all castes
and classes together. Nair quietly conducts a grand tour of how the varieties of contemporary life can be rendered into
fiction. In "Summer," for example, she creates a paradise of childhood, and in "Vishnukumar Valentine's Day" an
existence in which every detail is a chore and a nuisance."
The Chicago Tribune
"Indian writers Meera Nair and Amit Chaudhuri revel in these contradictions, in the stunning collisions between ancient ritual and contemporary reality that are everyday occurrences in India."
Providence Jounal Bulletin
"I usually find short stories frustrating and unsatisfying; just when I become intrigued by the characters the author ends the story and snatches them away from me. Not so with Meera Nair's first collection, "Video." Nair introduces her characters with an engaging warmth and affection and, at the end, leaves a taste of just enough possibility so that you can close the book and roll the story around in your mind for a while before picking it up to read the next."
USA Today
"Author Meera Nair visits a number of universal themes in her first story collection: the strains of marriage, the pain of abuse, the confusion and excitement of adolescence.
But the unique gifts within Nair's Video are its vivid portraits of Indian life. Nair , an American writer who was raised in India, infuses each tale with incisive details about Indian culture, from the magical to the mundane."
The Washington Times
"Ms. Nair's keen observation skills paint vivid scenes....
If on the one hand, Video is a portrait of India, it is also an unflinching exploration of the universal impulses, dark sides and loving capacities of human beings.
More praise for VIDEO
“Echo[es] the magic realism and mythic overtones of Arundhati Roy and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. . . . Video reveals the budding talent of an assured, accomplished writer.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“The writing is juicy; the details lovely, luscious bits of description that waft pungently from the Subcontinent with true Indian-style density.” —Los Angeles Times
“Sure-footed and telling, filled with powerful observations and sentences of lyric beauty. . . . [Video] revels in . . . the stunning collisions between ancient ritual and contemporary reality that are everyday occurrences in India.” —Chicago Tribune
“A gifted writer with a flair for storytelling, Nair creates passionate, distinctive characters, establishing herself as a writer to watch.” —USA Today
“Powerful. . . . Emotionally nuanced. . . . Flawlessly executed. . . . Taken together, [these stories] span a wide swath of Indian experience. . . . [An] accomplished collection.” —Vogue
“These stories are stunning: sensuous and touching and beautifully crafted. . . . I’ve never met Meera Nair, but I feel I’ll be listening to her for a very long time to come.” —Pico Iyer
“Memorable and moving. . . . Poignant. . . . Nair captures the voices of her countrymen to mesmerizing effect.” —The Oregonian
“Impressive . . . striking. . . . Comparable to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer winner Interpreter of Maladies, and very probably the beginning of a fine career.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Indelible. . . . A quietly defiant work of gentle emotion.” — The Austin Chronicle
“Masterful. . . . Unflinching. . . . Abound[ing] with authenticity.” —The Washington Times
Read an excerpt from "Video" here:
Maya Saves The Day
SaffronTree.org, October 7, 2013
"Right from the word go, it was clear that Meera Nair knows her craft. As I read, I realized she has managed to get into the head of a kid... It is impossible not to root for Maya, and hard not to hate the chowkidar. "
FirstPost, July 19, 2013
"With Maya Saves the Day, Nair is presenting a different kind of multicultural fiction. But it’s not the adventure that’s Indian, it’s the idiom.”
"Creates a satisfying amount of chaos.... I love this story for the real bravery it encapsulates ...and because it is so empowering for young children."