The Bones of Grace

Author: Thamima Anam

The Bones of Grace is the final novel of the trilogy of Tahmima Anam that started on 2007 with A Golden Age and continued into her second novel, A Good Muslim (2011).

It’s often said that in a trilogy, the final novel enchants the most. No deviation was noted with Anam’s trilogy too, as The Bones of Grace has at its core not but the shattering effects of car is positioned with conflicted love.

The narrator and main character, Zubaida Haque, is a young Bangladeshi paleontologist and Harvard graduate, caught between countries, cultures and two men: Rashid, the Bangladeshi childhood love she has agreed to marry; and Elijah, the American drifter who sparks a mutual passion the instant they meet in a Massachusetts concert hall.

The dilemma Zubaida goes through is the main plot of The Bones of Grace- her confusion- whether to live in or to give up dwells all through the novel. Along with her love-life-dilemma, Zubaida also journeys to find her roots. Anam’s novel interacts with the reader in an enchanting manner especially when Zubaida finds that she is an adopted child but her real parentage is an agonizing black.

As the story rolls on, Zubaida meets Elijah, who, forced to leave his child and lover due to poverty. The novel was written in a form of a letter- with more personal and intimate tone than the former ones.  Many a times, the book is full with questions- that too in the daily domestic boundaries- and the fractures of identity are rightly spoken. The Bangladeshi liberation was is presented as a character- its long, dark shadow prevails in everyone in the novel.