Welcome friend! If you had the opportunity to fluently learn a language of your choice in 10 days, would you do it? It is Women in Translation Month and I will take this tangential opportunity to tell you about a really cool book I read about a woman translator. The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi is a thought-provoking speculative fiction about a secret school of translation. Here is what it is about and why I am glad I read it.
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi | Goodreads
In this “dazzling” speculative debut, a London-based Pakistani translator furthers her stalled career by attending a mysterious language school that boasts near-instant fluency–but at a secret, sinister cost (Gillian Flynn)
Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of “great works of literature,” but mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood movies and living off her parents’ generous allowance. Adding to her growing sense of inadequacy, her mediocre white boyfriend, Adam, has successfully leveraged his savant-level aptitude for languages into an enviable career. But when Adam learns to speak Urdu practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.
Adam begrudgingly tells her about The Centre, an elite, invite-only program that guarantees complete fluency in any language, in just ten days. This sounds, to Anisa, like a step toward the life she’s always wanted. Stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world, she enrolls and undergoes The Centre’s strange and rigorous processes. But as Anisa enmeshes herself further within the organization, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the hidden cost of its services.
By turns darkly comic and surreal, and with twists as page-turning as they are shocking, The Centre journeys through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation along the way. Through Anisa’s addictive tale of striving and self-actualization, Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi ultimately asks the reader: What is the real price we pay in our scramble to the center?
Content notes include Cannibalism, Death, Sexual assault, Racism, Classism, Misogyny, Racial slurs.
The Centre – Review
There is so much I loved about The Centre. I don’t think I have read a Pakistani main character in a while (if ever) and Anisa’s narrative pulled me into this story for a lot of reasons.
As a fellow immigrant to another country from South East Asia, I related to many experiences that Anisa shared in this book. The homeliness of Pakistan, the stark differences between the lifestyles of Pakistan and England are parallel to my upbringing in India and subsequent move to Canada. I particularly enjoyed Anisa’s thoughts on language and how English has become her mother tongue even though it isn’t her mother tongue.
”English, for me, sadly, is the default. The neutral. It’s the language that I generally operate in, the one I dream in and think in, and the one I feel most comfortable expressing myself in. You know, I’d always assumed my mother tongue was Urdu, but maybe it is in fact English. It’s a problem, to struggle with something as simple as identifying your own mother tongue.” – pg 126
Pre-partition, her family would have been on the Indian border side. My maternal family would have been on the Pakistan side. I loved the many ways in which we are similar yet different, culturally, geographically and even in age.
At the beginning of the book, Anisa is translating Bollywood films into English. I loved her thoughts on Bollywood, the kind of movies she grew up with (I did too!) and the kinds of storytelling that is prevalent now. These connections to my home really enhanced this book for me and I adored the sprinkle of urdu and hindi throughout the book.
The Centre is an elite invitation-only institute that promises fluency in a language through an expensive ten-day immersive program. Anisa is referred there by her ex-boyfriend, Adam, and her first stint there learning German is eye opening. Away from technology, her family and friends, she has to follow a strict regimen of meditation, language lessons and food breaks. She is assigned a supervisor, Shiba, who she finds companionship in. As I was reading The Centre, I was also reading Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus. He talks about his four week technology-free retreat and Anisa’s experiences at The Centre were similar to the challenges that he faced. The Internet, our phones, email and social media have become such an integral part of our lives that time away from them makes us anxious and nervous. It can lead up down unethical paths.
Anisa’s reflection on how German ends up being different from all the other languages she knows was fascinating to me. As a multilingual person, how do we keep so many languages straight in our head? I particularly enjoyed the commentary on translation – it is one of my favorite topics to read fiction about. I am always taking photos of books about translation or books that are translated with Babel because it is the most erudite fiction I have read on the topic.
The Centre is a major mystery throughout this book. Why is it so expensive? Why does one have to sign a NDA to get in? Why is it not open to the public? The secluded location, the secrecy around getting to and from there, the strict schedule, the limitations to only interact with one person even though there are as many of 19 fellow learners at the facility at the same time makes this place creepy and uncanny. The building itself with its immaculate garden and layout and special noise canceling areas made for conversations create a certain erudite, posh and mysterious atmosphere. The book does a great job of world building. Though she is taken care of physically in her time at The Centre with amazing food, especially made for her, Anisa is also mentally drained. The training makes no sense to her until things click in and then it feels like magic. I enjoyed how Anisa’s spy personality starts to reveal itself as her curiosity about the place and how learning a language with such fluency becomes a question she must find answers to.
The story progresses at a good pace. Anisa is a captivating perspective. She is an imperfect human being, coming to terms with the patriarchal society she grew up in, the freedom she enjoys in England and the career she wants to have. She has a certain idea of what it means to be a translator. She wants to translate serious literature and her choice of languages – German and Russian – speaks to the elitism within languages themselves. At her heart, Anisa is a creator and the success of one project only leaves her wanting for more.
Though the second half of the book is truly where Anisa got into the mystery and sleuthing around The Centre, I found it to be not as well done as the first time. The interactions between Anisa and Arjun felt more to make a point about patriarchy and sexual assault than to actually contribute to the other parts of the story. Personally, I could not just take a trip to another country, even if it is next to my home country, to get answers about an institution I am curious about. Some of the things that Anisa does in the second half of the book were dangerous, maybe unnecessary, and unsafe in my opinion. But that aside, her efforts pay off and she gets her answers. The chapter with the reveal about how The Centre works was a fun one because I was as baffled to learn the truth as Anisa was.
Anisa and Naima’s friendship was another highlight for me in this book! I loved the ways in which they supported each other as well as the brutally honest conversations that they had as time progressed. Naima sees Anisa’s true self-sabotaging nature while Anisa sees Naima fade into a lesser self around her lover. I found Naima to be a super cool character, performing tarot, tantra, manifestations and I was happy wth many of the female empowerment sessions that I got to witness through Anisa. Layered in their friendship is commentary around the ways in which women support each other and offer a compassionate and empathetic safe place to express the parts of us that we fear or are ashamed of.
The Centre is not a gorey book. It has moments of cringe and discomfort but overall, it is a psychological mystery about one woman’s drive to make a name for herself as a translator. It does a great job of highlighting the immigrant experience, the loneliness of it as well as the ways in which we cope. It talks about the dangers we put ourselves into and how we justify our actions to ourselves. It is unique and I am glad to have read it.
Discussion Questions for The Centre
- If you had the opportunity to fluently learn a language of your choice in 10 days, would you do it?
- Knowing the secret method that The Centre uses to successfully create fluency, would you still go for such a course?
- Did you guess the method used by The Centre cannibalism? If you has seen the other book cover, would you have picked up this book?
- What role did Anisa’s romantic relationships play in the book?
- What did you think of Naima?
- What did you think of the immersive program at The Centre?
- Is there anything else you would like to highlight about the book?
- Is it cheating to learn a language with such fluency in such a short time and be able to use it professionally?
Though I did not get to discuss this book with anyone, I really wanted to! So if you get around to reading it, we should chat. 🙂 Add The Centre to your Goodreads.
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