Hungry Ghosts: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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A dissection of class, disloyalty, extreme poverty, colonialism, generational trauma, abuse, explosive barbarity, (disclaimer: if you can’t handle reading about violence against animals, don’t go here).

I own three dogs! I grew up with dogs my whole life and those scenes were really hard to write. I was thinking about how dogs were written in [JM Coetzee’s novel] Disgrace, and the analogy he used with the dogs, how throwaway the lives of animals were. It wasn’t easy to write. It was [originally] worse. But my agent, he loves dogs, and he said: “It can’t be like this, it will turn off too many people.” Eventually it becomes very clear that Hema is not the only ghost that haunts these people; there are many others with their own unfulfilled and A barnstorming fable about the perils of upward mobility, set in the dog days of colonial rule in the author’s native Trinidad … Told with riveting verve, this is a terrific novel, pegged to national as well as domestic strife, peopled by flesh-and blood characters and plotted to keep us on tenterhooks about the story’s pole-axing finale." — Daily Mail (UK) She aint want to come near you.’ Tarak put a gentle hand on her and she stopped. ‘And you aint want to come near we. Just be fair. We was here first.’ Tarak burst into laughter, nearly dropping the bag into the water. ‘You shoulda see your face! It gone red like a tomato!’

In the end, I stopped looking up all the new words, which could not be found in the Kindle’s own dictionary and began to skim read. Which is no way to be reading. Pumped his hands on her belly. Did it again. And again. And again, until a squirt of water came out of her nose. Then pumped some more. Tarak stood at the other end of the yard, two flour bags in hand. His feet also wrapped in flour bags, tied with twine above the ankles. An astonishing novel – linguistically gorgeous, narratively propulsive and psychologically profound' BERNARDINE EVARISTO

In Hungry Ghosts, Kevin Jared Hosein takes a small place, a particular slice of Trinidad and writes it with the depth and scope that it deserves. And he does it because he knows it - truly, deeply. The result is a story that is harrowing, fiercely beautiful and deeply human. I won’t soon forget these characters or this story. I think we are going to be talking about this book for a long time to come.”— Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, author of When We Were Birds First? Aint matter who first,’ said Shane. ‘The only thing that matter is that it have three of we. And two of you.’ This book takes on huge themes of masculinity, grief, forgiveness, domestic violence, class and social mobility. Yet, they are all expertly handled by Hossein and provide much food for thought. I would say that the richness of this novel was almost a little too much at times, giving me a slight sense of reader indigestion as I worked at trying to take everything in. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I really love how it took an uncommon aspect, video game design, and still made it into a compelling story. I think it’s something quite remarkable.Eventually it becomes very clear that Hema is not the only ghost that haunts these people; there are many others with their own unfulfilled and unfulfillable appetites that ultimately lead them into despair. In the bigger scheme of things though, it's the ghosts of Trinidad's colonial past that are the most haunting of all. "Behold hell" indeed. Make the fish like you then. So, think bout the things that the fish like.’ He instructed Krishna to crane forward, only one hand in the water this time. ‘Fish like to eat worms. So, you have to move your fingers like worms. The right amount of movement. You have to believe each finger is a separate worm. Like they aint part of you no more.’ Hungry Ghosts opens with four boys doing a blood pact that will make them brothers for the rest of their lives. Do they know what this pact means? How will it impact their individual lives? That is exactly what we find out in this book. It was a test, devised by the Lord. And he passed. The Lord appeared before the future king and spoke the quote. Yudhishthira was now worthy of being a king. A king is often spoilt and not subjected to suffering, but must come to know it for the sake of his subjects. So the quote isn’t about being tortured or punished, but a divine call for sensibility, for empathy...