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The Lovers and the Leavers by Abeer Y. Hoque

milandeep's review

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4.0

In Abeer Hoque's The Lovers and The Leavers, a collection of twelve linked stories, we meet a small group of characters whose lives intersect over the years at different stages of their lives. Small characters in one story may become main characters in next one. Every story begins with a few lines of poetry and a photograph. These stories are about different kinds of love and relationships. The settings of the stories shift from Bangladesh to the US to India to Spain.

The stories are mostly about diaspora experiences as the author has lived in many places. The feeling of alienation appears at times but she has a great insight about different cultural experiences. I read the poems again after reading the story and I think she uses the poems to give a different point of view. The poems, the photographs and the prose make a refreshing interwoven tapestry.
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