Book review: Too Asian, Not Asian Enough
by Layli Uddin
Too Asian, Not Asian Enough is a delectably diverse array of short stories from established and first-time British Asian writers. It is, as editor Kavita Bhanot states, based on the rather ambitious and promising undertaking to breathe new life into a genre of work that has become stale, predictable and in many ways, banal.
Although the ever-burgeoning crop of British Asian writers certainly broke new ground in fiction, their abundance also perhaps typecast them, and led to an unremitting recycling of clichés, stereotyping and exoticisation of the lives led by diasporic communities. In the world of British Asian fiction, it has been a bottomless cup of tyrannical parents and their demands virginal, marriageable daughters and heterosexual sons – preferably doctors; the endless tut-tutting of the extended family or nosy Asian neighbours; and the rebellious young Asian whose story climaxes by either succumbing to the ways of the turban or hijab, or a feverish embrace of a maverick ‘British identity.’
The writers of Too Asian, Not Asian Enough refuse to be defined by the work of their predecessors or the expectations of their readers. These writers wish to be defined by the quality of their work, which may be either ‘too Asian’ like Malkani’s deliciously sardonic and witty tale ‘Asian of the Month’, where the readers are witnesses to the existential dramas of a group of Asians as they battle it out to ‘represent’, or they are ‘not Asian enough’ like that of Rohan Kar, who writes a rather warm, yet profoundly lonely tale of a son’s journey to scatter his mother’s ashes at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Too Asian, Not Asian Enough is delightfully provocative and tantalising in its play of emotions, and it certainly offers readers a broad range of stories, which are diverse in terms of time, place and characters. Some have your belly aching with laughter, such as Madhvi Ramani’s ‘Windows’, which has a lonely and neglected Asian grandmother on a housebreaking spree in her neighbourhood, and rediscovering a zest for life as she stealthily climbs through windows. Rajeev Balasubramanyam’s ‘Tablet of Bliss’ is an equally mischievous tale of David Beckham being struck by a political epiphany, growing a beard and declaring solidarity with his Muslim brothers.
However, this belly-ache of laughter is soon replaced by internal yearning, as tender yet painful stories of loneliness, failure and silent rage take hold. For example, Divya Ghelani’s story ‘Your Incredible Excuse’ which features protagonist Abhi who associates success with the bitterly long winters when his parents had refused to pay his bills, so that he stayed at boarding school.
However, as much as some of the stories titillate certain emotions, Too Asian, Not Asian Enough occasionally falters; some stories leave the reader feeling cold and wishing Bhanot as editor had been more discriminating, and authors more diligent about character and plot development. We find that in some of the stories one set of stereotypes have been replaced by another, and issues such as homosexuality and mental health are either glibly treated, or in typically offensive ways.
Nonetheless, Too Asian, Not Asian Enough is a good read and deserves a discerning audience that will appreciate the effort by this new generation of British Asian writers to create a space that isn’t hampered by the marketing demands of the publishing industry or cliches of predecessors, but rather, is a space where they can create fresh and original narratives – some much needed additions to a hackneyed canon.
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