The Centre

Shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize'Absolutely stunning . . . thrilling and unique' - Gillian Flynn'Creepy, provocative and wildly entertaining' - Emma Stonex'A thrillingly ambitious literary chiller' - The GuardianWelcome to The Centre. The cost may be high, but you'll never be the same . . . Anisa Ellahi longs to become a translator of 'great works of literature', but right now she is stuck in her London flat writing subtitles for Bollywood films.Then she is told about the Centre, an elite, invite-only programme that guarantees complete fluency in any language in just ten days. Seduced by all that it could make possible, Anisa enrols. But the Centre's services come at a disturbing hidden cost. Still - it's worth it, right? After all, success comes at a price . . .By turns dark, funny and surreal, The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London and New Delhi. Throughout it interrogates the sticky politics of language, translation and appropriation and asks: what price would you be willing to pay for success?'Fantastic . . . This Black Mirror take on the world of language opens up questions of cultural appropriation, the power of language, memory and privilege' – The Observer