Green-Eyed Thieves
by Imraan Coovadia
Umuzi, 2006
reviewed by Ben Oswest
Coovadia’s latest novel is the “book of the week” in today’s Sunday Times; I wrote the review, which the paper published in slightly-edited form.
- Green-Eyed Thieves reviewed by Ben Oswest (Sunday Times 6 Aug 06).
- Purchase a copy of Green-Eyed Thieves.
Here’s the review in full:
Of the many astute observations tossed out with offhand dexterity in Imraan Coovadia’s Green-Eyed Thieves, one of the most telling is the remark from the novel’s main character – the aptly-named Firoze Peer – that “It’s a defining trait of great villains… to flourish in death.” The “great villain” Peer refers to is none other than Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on September 11, 2001, and, posthumously, a personality flourishing in the imaginations of dozens of writers, including John Updike and Martin Amis.
