Latest news with #Nila
The Hindu
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Interview with Aria Aber, author of Good Girl, shortlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2025
Nila, 19, is in all respects a 'bad girl'. She is rebellious, she drinks, engages in substance abuse, and she dates a charismatic American novelist, Marlowe Woods, who is several years her senior. But the ironically titled Good Girl by Aria Aber (published by Bloomsbury), shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025, is much more than a coming-of-age story. Aber explores broader themes such as immigrant experiences, racism, violence, desire, shame, and self-discovery in a powerful debut novel. Over a Zoom call, she speaks about her love for Berlin, and the characters she was forced to keep and kill. Edited excerpts: Q: Like Nila in the book, your parents are from Afghanistan and you were born and brought up in Germany. Is there anything of you in this book? A: Any work of fiction or art is autobiographical. I can give you an example of how I am every character in the book, not just Nila. When I started writing the book in 2020, I lived in North California and was working as a guest lecturer at Oakland University. I didn't have health insurance and I had to move back to Berlin to a small district, which was close to a club. Both these topographies ended up influencing the narrative of the book — specifically the biography of Marlowe Woods. So, there were things I took from my life that ended up in the book in unexpected ways. Q: This book is as much about Nila as it is about Berlin. What do you love about Berlin and what aspects of the city did you want to bring into this book? A: I love Berlin; it's one of the only places in the world, but specifically in Germany, where I have felt at home. It's diverse, alive, chaotic, and beautiful — and also a little rough, which is I think is aesthetically what I'm drawn to. When I was first there in 2012, I noticed that a lot of English-speaking expats were moving into the city. Berlin had already been populated by a new wave of voluntary migrants — not Turkish workers from the 1980s, or refugees from the Arab and Muslim world, but young creatives with degrees. They had come from Italy or Spain or Greece because the economy had collapsed after the financial crisis and Germany was one of the last stable economies. And then suddenly, there was this new influx of creatives, of Americans and British people. Something shifted around that time. I heard for the first time the person behind the counter at a bar not speaking German, but English. I wanted to capture the period before that happened, when expats were still in the city, but they were not as visible. I also really wanted to bring out the idea of parallel societies. Nila is ashamed of her heritage because she grows up in this post 9/11 world. She oscillates between two very intense worlds. One is her refugee community, which is not assimilated into the majority society properly, and the other is the underworld of the club kids, which is also not assimilated into the majority society properly. Both of these worlds are parallel and are being critiqued by common German citizens for not leading their lives according to the production and generation of capital. Q: A lot of your characters have conversations when they are drunk or when they are engaged in substance abuse. How did you research those portions? Did you watch films, read, interact with people? A: Dialogue comes pretty naturally to me, even though I do pay attention to it, probably subconsciously, when I watch films. I remember rewatching Lena Dunham's TV series Girls and just marvelling at how good and funny the dialogues were, and how realistic each character was. There are some writers I'm drawn to, such as Don DeLillo and Sally Rooney, who write great dialogue. So I think I look to other writers for dialogue. But for atmosphere and plot, I draw inspiration from films. Q: Given the age gap between Marlowe and Nila and the occasional violence that occurs within their relationship, this is tricky terrain to write about. It seems predatory at first glance, but when you look at it, Nila does have agency. How do you navigate this relationship without giving the reader the impression that this is okay? A: I wanted to explore the nuances and complications of a young person who believes they have full agency and control and then later on understand that the predatory aspects (of the relationship) that were not witnessed. So, what does that do to a person who is not a victim necessarily, but may have experienced some things within a relationship that were victimising her? Nila was looking for something exciting and she didn't know what it was. She didn't have the language for it, a way to articulate it, or draw a boundary. I wanted to write about juvenile confusion and self-destruction. Often, people who have self-destructive streaks seek them out in their relationships. I tried to go into the depths of that relationship and in order for that to feel human and realistic, I also had to understand Marlowe, so that he's not just a caricature. So I wrote some chapters from his perspective [which did not make it to the book]. Q: You're also a poet but your book doesn't read like a book by a poet, and that's not an insult! Was it a conscious choice to write differently? A: It is fascinating you say that. My intention was to not write a poet's novel. Not because I don't like reading them; I love reading them. I love an experimental plotless book that is linguistically interesting with sentences so delicious that I want to eat them. But I like the concept of a narrative having a beginning, a middle, and an end. A climax where the character experiences change to a point of no return, et cetera. That partly has to do with the fact that in Afghan culture — and this is probably true in Indian culture too — storytelling is very important. When you're in a social gathering, you can entice everyone with a story. Q: My favourite character in the book is Nila's mother. How attached were you to that character? A: She's actually one of my favourite characters too. I had to kill her because she was taking up too much space in the book. I had to kill my darling in order to write what I wanted to write about, which was Nila and Marlowe. My next book will be set in the 1980s in Afghanistan, and it will follow feminist revolutionaries [which Nila's mother was]. radhika.s@
Daily Maverick
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Women's prize for fiction 2025: Six experts review the shortlisted novels
There are stories about family, sex, history, death and fundamentalism. From a longlist of 16, six novels have been shortlisted for the 2025 Women's prize for fiction. Our experts review the finalists (the announcement of the winner will be today, on 12 June 2025). The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden The Safekeep, a novel about the expropriation and theft of Jewish property during and after the second world war, revisits a dark chapter of Dutch history. When Holland fell to Nazi Germany, many Dutch Jews were deported to the death camps and were stripped of their homes and belongings. Van der Wouden's debut novel shines alight on the act of keeping or maintaining things left behind that were to be reclaimed by their rightful owners, but which were lost or stolen in the war. The trauma of this history hangs over the lives of three siblings grieving the loss of their mother in 1961. Isabel, the novel's lonely protagonist, lives alone in the family house, keeping it in order as her late mother would have wanted. All the while she suspects that their maid is stealing from the kitchen. But following the arrival of her brother's girlfriend, Eva, Isabel discovers the truth of the house and attempts to right historical wrongs. By Manjeet Ridon, Associate Dean International, Arts, Design and Humanities Good Girl by Aria Aber Aria Aber's debut is a frequently poetic and powerful künstlerroman (a novel that maps the development of an artist). It follows Nila, a young Afghan woman in Berlin, as she tries to escape from her own cultural heritage and that of the German city in which she lives. For much of the novel, Nila moves through the margins of society, from her family home in a brutalist rundown apartment block in the neighbourhood of Neukölln to a seemingly endless cycle of underground clubs, parties and festivals. She pushes away her family, her childhood friends, and her college education to pursue an alternative creative life and a destructive love affair. Ultimately though, Nila realises that her artistic work and a truly independent life can only be forged through her reconciliation with the past. Set against the real far-right violence of the 2000s, Aber makes clear how social inequalities and racial prejudices effect artistic access and creativity. She also acutely captures the tensions between freedom and tradition as experienced by bicultural Muslim women grappling with the expectation to be 'good girls'. All Fours by Miranda July 'Everyone thinks doggy style is so vulnerable,' remarks one of the characters in Miranda July's latest work of fiction. This story takes sexuality as its subject along with its relationship with creativity and ageing – or more specifically, the midlife plunge from a cliff that is female menopause. Like the author, July's nameless protagonist is 45, a successful artist, and married with a non-binary child. This auto-fiction puts the author's erotic nonconformity at the centre of the frame. Our heroine embarks on a road-trip to New York, but only 20 minutes from her home she falls in love with a young man. The pair spend two weeks together in a motel pursuing a mutual obsession, which ultimately remains unconsummated. This experience upends her life and she rebounds into turbulent adventures in sex, discovering a new sense of self. Perhaps it could have been a little tighter than its 322 pages – but then again, it's a work that explores a capacious road to excess. All Fours is a funny, honest, rambunctious tale Elizabeth Kuti, Professor in the Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji 'Do they think we were just some refugees?' Shirin, one of the characters in The Persians, asks her niece Bita. 'Weren't we?' Bita replies. The question of what a refugee looks like and what kind of stories they are expected to tell is a central theme in Mahloudji's raucous, poignant novel. The story shifts back and forward in time, from Tehran in the 1940s to Los Angeles in the Reagan years, and to both America and Iran in the 2000s, interweaving the voices of five women from the wealthy and powerful Valiat family. Mahloudji explores love, miscommunication, loyalties and betrayal across generations as well as between those who left and those who stayed behind. Jewellery is a central theme in the novel: glistening in shops, hidden in suitcases or flung away in protest. It represents both the adornment of female identity and the weight of the history that the migrants carry with them. Alexandra Peat, Lecturer in English and Director of the MA in Literature and Publishing Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout Tell Me Everything is the tenth novel in Elizabeth Strout's well-known series that sketches the lives of ordinary, yet complex characters, who enter and exit each other's lives in the nowhere town of Crosby, Maine. The three main figures in this latest instalment are 90-year-old retired schoolteacher Olive Kitteridge (recognisable from Frances McDormand's realisation in the award-winning TV series by the same name), middle age fiction writer Lucy Barton, and 65-year-old lawyer Bob Burgess. Loosely, this novel can be described as a murder mystery, though the plot twist of an alleged matricide, and Burgess's decision to defend the case, are secondary to the three main characters' process of sharing previously untold accounts of forbidden, traumatic, guilty and unrequited love. It is this telling and memorialising that produces the emotional core of the novel. If sharing their past gives the ageing storytellers some respite from the burden of their hidden lives, it is not in the kind that comforts with meaning and purpose. In Strout's novel, this relief is unavailable and is replaced with the more ephemeral solace of simply being heard. Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis At the heart of Fundamentally is the affinity that forms between narrator Nadia, appointed by the United Nations to rehabilitate 'Isis brides' in Iraq, and one of her subjects, Sara, an east Londoner on the cusp of adulthood. They connect through a shared love of rollerblading, Dairy Milk and X-Men, as well as their caustic sense of humour. But the two British Muslim women have followed vastly different routes – Nadia to academia and the UN and Sara to a detention camp in Ninewah. Nadia's story of her journey through the vagaries of the humanitarian sector, punctuated by flashbacks to her failed relationship with first love Rosy and fraught relationship with her mother, is told with a compelling mix of verve and vulnerability. It raises hard ethical and political questions along the way. But it is Nadia's mission to help Sara that gives the novel its emotional complexity and depth, drawing the reader in while denying us any easy answers. Rehana Ahmed, Reader in Postcolonial and Contemporary Literature. DM This story first appeared in The Conversation. Manjeet Ridon is a Associate Dean International, Arts, Design and Humanities. Éadaoin Agnew is a Senior lecturer in English literature. Elizabeth Kuti is a Professor in the Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies. Alexandra Peat is a Lecturer in English and Director of the MA in Literature and Publishing. Yianna Liatsos is a Associate Professor in the School of English Irish and Communication. Rehana Ahmed is a Reader in Postcolonial and Contemporary Literature.
News18
10-06-2025
- News18
'2,000 Deaths Each Year': 2023 PIL In Bombay HC Highlighted Mumbai Suburban Railway Accidents
Before the Mumbai train accident, a 2023 PIL flagged thousands of deaths on Mumbai's rail network, prompting Bombay High Court to say that passengers were treated like "cattle". A PIL, filed in 2023, had drawn the Bombay High Court's attention to deaths happening every year in the suburban railway. The PIL was accessed exclusively by CNN-News18, in the backdrop of the suburban train accident in Thane's Mumbra on Monday, in which four people lost their lives. According to the contents, the 2023 PIL stated that 2,000 deaths happen every year on the suburban railway. It also mentioned that 2,590 commuters had lost their lives in 2023, which meant an average of seven deaths per day. Nearly 2,441 people were injured during the same period. A total of 1,650 deaths were reported on the Central Railways, while another 940 deaths were reported on the Western Railways. More than 1,800 deaths were reported on Mumbai local trains, it stated. After the PIL was submitted, the Bombay High Court had pulled up the railways and had directed general managers to look into the 'very serious issue'. The High Court also said the human passengers are carried like 'cattle" on local trains and that the officers at the highest level should be made accountable. Meanwhile, the Central Railway's principal chief safety officer (PCSO) said they would probe the suburban train accident in Thane's Mumbra. It is being treated as an incident and not an accident, CR chief public relations officer Swapnil Nila told PTI. PCSO CK Prasad visited the site earlier in the day and carried out an inspection, he added. 'Relevant information is being collected, and efforts to identify the root cause are being made. The principal chief safety officer (PCSO) will conduct an inquiry into the incident that occurred around 9.10 am," he said. 'From preliminary investigation, it is found that the passengers were travelling on the footboard," Nila said. To avoid similar incidents in the future, all new locals will be introduced with an automatic door closure system, while existing trains will be retrofitted with it, Nila said. A railway team reached the spot at Mumbra station in the evening and took measurements of the gap between the two fast lines (Up and Down) tracks there, other officials said. As per Central Railway officers, eight passengers were found injured in the gap between two parallel railway tracks between Mumbra and Diwa railway stations in the morning, while five other passengers onboard the CSTM-bound Kasara-10 local sustained minor injuries. Railway officers said the Karjat-11 local from CSMT was crossing the Kasara-10 local at Mumbra when the incident took place. It was first reported by the train manager of a Kasara-CSMT train, officials said. Emergency response teams, including ambulances and railway medical staff, were immediately dispatched to the site, and the injured passengers were swiftly transported to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital, Kalwa, and Civil Hospital, Thane, he said.
New Indian Express
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
In Between Places: Ahead of the Women's Prize announcement, Afghan writer Aria Aber talks about her Berlin-set, shortlisted novel Good Girl
Power, desire and violence In the novel, Nila meets Marlowe Woods, a charismatic 36-year-old American writer, in one of Berlin's bunkers. While their relationship begins flirtatiously, it veers into more complicated terrain. The age gap sets up the classic 'older man, young woman' dynamic, but Aber resists that binary. 'Nila is not just a victim. She has agency. She's being victimised, but she's also self-destructive and is actively seeking out extreme experiences.' Aber wanted readers to understand why Nila would fall into that kind of relationship. 'This isn't a cautionary tale — it serves a different literary purpose.' Violence, especially the kind masked as discipline or care, runs quietly through the novel. Nila often revisits memories of her mother. She recalls times when she willingly offered her cheek in anticipation of a slap, or when a woman reminded her mother not to hit her in public — because they were in Germany now. Aber explores how different forms of violence — domestic, erotic, state-sanctioned, — intersect and echo in characters' lives. 'There's an electric current of violence running from one system to another. It doesn't come from nowhere — it's triggered by something external that lives inside the perpetrator,' she says. She asks: 'Why is domestic violence excused in some communities and not others? Often it comes from powerlessness, a way for those pushed to society's edges to assert control in the only space they can—their homes.' This is why she sets the family in Berlin's prefab housing blocks. 'These places are rife with crime, disenfranchisement, and a lack of opportunity. In those environments, interpersonal violence runs rampant — not because it's justified, but because the people living there are themselves being violated by the state, capitalism, and structural neglect,' says Aber.
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Business Standard
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
At least four killed, 6 injured after falling off moving train in Thane
The incident occurred between Diva and Kopar railway stations when the overcrowded train was going towards Kasara, an official said Press Trust of India Thane At least four passengers were killed and six injured after falling off a moving local train in Maharashtra's Thane district on Monday morning, police said. The incident occurred between Diva and Kopar railway stations when the overcrowded train was going towards Kasara, an official said. As there was a huge rush during the peak hour, many people were standing at the doors of the train, he said. While the train was in motion, at least 10 passengers fell down, the official said. A guard of another train, which was going towards Kasara, alerted the railway authorities about the incident, he said. All the passengers who fell were rushed to a civic-run hospital in Kalwa. Four of them were declared dead on arrival, the official said. The deceased were in the age group of 30 to 35 years, he said. Swapnil Nila, chief public relations officer of the Central Railway, earlier in the day told PTI that the guard of a Kasara-bound train reported about the injured passengers along the track side to the control room at around 9.30 am. The injured passengers were rushed to the nearby hospitals, he said. Nila had said it was not yet known from which train the passengers fell. Shiv Sena Lok Sabha member from Thane, Naresh Mhaske demanded a probe into the death of passengers. "The cause of the incident needs to be addressed. How did they there a crowd, were they pushed, was there a fight," he told a regional news channel. Mhaske said, "One can understand if it was a crowded local train. But in this case, the tragedy happened in a moving express train. The administration also needs to be alert." Leader of Opposition in the state legislative council Ambadas Danve in a post on X said the incident of so many people suddenly getting out of the Pushpak Express and resulting in the accident is heartbreaking and serious. This incident raises questions about railway safety in Mumbai, he said.
