This Other Salt

In this long-awaited second collection from Aamer Hussein, he continues and deepens his oblique, subversive portrayal of the preoccupations of our betrayal, bereavement, exile, belonging and the writer’s role. In "This Other Salt" a writer, torn between two loves, looks for his lost words in the gap between memory, mourning and desire; in "The Lost Cantos of the Silken Tiger" a poet revenges herself on her faithless lover by turning their romance into a biblical legend; and in "The Blue Direction" a teenage boy's life uncannily begins to resemble the role he plays in a school operetta. Combining satire, legend, poetry, history and memoir, the linked stories of This Other Salt reveal an author of uncommon talent at the height of his craft.