The Wedding

by Imraan Coovadia

Set in India and South Africa, The Wedding joins Ismet Nassin, a clerk of modest prospects from Bombay, and Khateja, a village beauty he marries on the very day he spies her from the window of his train. Matrimony happens fast, love lags behind. Khateja is willful, difficult, and misanthropic—in short, highly desirable. Ismet is in for the battle of his life.

Based upon the story of his grandparents and his own upbringing in Durban, South Africa, Imraan Coovadia has written a brilliantly funny and tender first novel—an alternately poignant and hilarious story about the choices we make and the homes that we build.

The Wedding is a witty and wonderful subcontinental The Taming of the Shrew .

Genres: Fiction, South Africa, Novels

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Imraan Coovadia was born in Durban in 1970. He is the author of the novels The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves, High Low In-between and The Institute for Taxi Poetry.

He has also published a study of V.S. Naipaul, as well as a collection of essays, Transformations, and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, N+1, The Independent, Threepenny Review, Chimurenga, and The Times of India.

His work has won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the University of Johannes­burg Prize, the M-Net Prize, and a South African Literary Award for Non-Fiction.

He is a graduate of Harvard College and directs the writing programme at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Reviews

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

in pretty damn funny indian "english" vernacular, lots of smile-smiles and chit-chitchaterring follows a just married couple to SA, in what, 1910's? with great humor the author creates a fairly deep and feeling novel about "indianness", immigrant experience, community. kinda of a sleeper novel and his first. would be a good one for those reluctant to know about the rest of the world, as it teaches in a funny way.

[Ansie de Swardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Off-beat and very funny, the book is an enjoyable read. The structure could have been better. The bickering beween the two protagonists, the splendid insults they sling at each other, are entertaining but it gets a bit much eventually. And then suddenly, poof, all problems are resolved between the two. The last bit of the book zooms along at breakneck speed, with no clarification of what the feelings are towards the surprising developments. I think the author got tired of the book himself and just decided to finish it. Well it was his first book.
I have read one of his other books too, the Institute for Taxi Poetry, and it was great.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the start of the story to be very slow and then in the very end, the story speed through decades of their lives. The the couple finally has a physical relationship, got divorced, and lost everything. It is weird that they didn't talk about being parents but we know that they had a child because the narrator was their grandkid. How he lost his job? Why they didn't return to India after 3 years like the original plan?

[Jocelyn Newmarch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light, comic read about an Indian man trying to woo his wife, who did not consent to the marriage.

[Erica Smythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting characters interwoven with South Africa’s history.

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was tired of the dialect by the end, although it was amusing. So little action, so much talk. Then at the end, the 'grandfather" takes a second wife, which is the most interesting happening in the whole book, but a complete surprise, and not explained at all. After being privy to the thoughts of the main characters all the way through, all of a sudden, action without explanation.

[Josie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very sad story told like a happy one, which is perhaps required when the story is that of one's own grandparents and it needed to happen or one wouldn't exist.

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I really "got" this book. I did like this quote (page 191) "To come fully into its own, the present necessarily expands at the cost of the past, no?"

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some very funny parts of this book, almost laugh out loud funny!

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny and cleverly written. Enjoyed it very much!