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Author Tahmima Anam talks to The World's producer Carol Zall about her new novel "A Golden Age"
Author Tahmima Anam reads an excerpt from her new novel "A Golden Age." (first)
Author Tahmima Anam reads an excerpt from her new novel "A Golden Age." (second)

The Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971 is the setting for this fine debut novel by a Bengali writer who happens to be a Harvard-trained anthropologist. Born four years after the devastating war, which left at least 300,000 people dead, Tahmima Anam has brilliantly imagined her way into the life of Rehana, a widow loosely based on her own grandmother, who evolves into what she calls “an accidental revolutionary.” The daily round of Rehana's days—cooking, visiting her husband's grave, making ends meet—takes on new meaning as her house is turned into an insurgent hideout; the choices she faces, the secrets she keeps, become ever more consequential. This novel, which is part of a trilogy on the founding of the most densely-populated country on earth, is a lively read, filled with the details of an ordinary life made extraordinary by war—and the writer.