The Obscure Logic of the Heart by Priya Basil Doubleday HK$169
In her second novel, Kenyan-born writer Priya Basil serves up a romance beset with religious woes and familial disasters against a backdrop of modern Britain, the United States and Africa.
Now based in Britain, Basil has quite a bit to live up to. Her first novel, Ishq and Mushq, was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize. However, The Obscure Logic of the Heart leans towards a tug-on-the-heart-strings saga, sometimes verging on soap-opera dramatics.
Primarily, this is because its central message is that we can't ignore the truth that love is at the core of human nature and always has been.
To convey this message, Basil unites the beautiful and innocent (sometimes annoyingly so) Lina with the suave Anil, both coming from different religions and backgrounds. Anil is a Sikh with no religious beliefs, while Lina is a devout Muslim.
Cue the inevitable parental clashes and throw in their vastly different life choices and a doomed yet sincerely passionate romance, a la Romeo and Juliet, emerges.
It starts with Lina, at university and living with an aunt, having always done what her family advises. Yet she can't escape Anil's confident charms and they embark on a relationship as he flits from Kenya to Britain while she eventually pursues her dream to save the world as an aid worker.