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Reviews and Readers

drenched thoughts
                           a novel
 

Prof Nandini Sahu reviews Anita Nahal’s “Drenched Thoughts” for its emotional depth, narrative depth, and portrayal of Priya’s journey, emphasizing its relevance in diaspora literature. Please click here for the full review or click on the image below ro read it in Different Truths journal

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"This is a novel that needs to be studied by university students, both for content and the multi-genre form. It will give a sound socio-cultural perspective to students who are into a multi-cultural range of inquiry."

~Lakshmi Kannan in FemAsia, UK, October 2023
Please click here for the full review or click on the image below.

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"One look at this beauty, written exquisitely by Dr. Anita Nahal, impeccably published by Authorspress, and I am absolutely drenched! Drenched in the intriguing wordplay, the enchanting juxtaposition of prose and verse, the tender wielding of the pen, and a whole gamut of emotions!...Vibrating with a pulsating vitality, this is a book that all bibliophiles will love to have in their shelf."  

~ Santosh Bakaya in Confluence, UK, September 2023
Please click here for the full review or click on the image below.

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Prof Anisur Rahman reviews Anita Nahal’s “Drenched Thoughts”  and syas, "Drenched Thoughts can be categorised as a diasporic novel of transcultural imagination. It draws upon memory and myth, individual and communal histories, utopias, and worldviews."` Sahitya Akademi's Indian Literature, May 2024

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“Though Drenched Thoughts is US-based poet and children's book writer Anita Nahal's first novel, the narrative exudes not just skilled confidence but a programmed revelation of the life, trials and introspective ruminations of the protagonist…Drenched Thoughts will be a captivating read for general readers and will be of immense interest to students and researchers of social anthropology and diasporic studies.”

~Sanjukta Dasputa in The Statesman, India, February 1, 2024
Please click here for the full review or on the image below.

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"Anita Nahal has given us a breathing, pulsing novel filled with wonder, pain, and laughter. I hold truth and love in the highest estimate, and these are the center of drenched thoughts. "


~ Candice Louisa Daquin in The Bangalore Review, September 2023 
Please click here for the full review or click on the image below.

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Kisses at the Espresso Bar

Poems in this volume are like pieces of artwork representative of the real-surreal layered world in which we reside. The book contains images by seven artists from around the world who are mixed media artists, sculptors, painters, quilt artists, visual artists, and graphite pencil artists.

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Basudhara Roy
EastIndiaStory

Review of What's wrong with us Kali women? and Kisses at the espresso bar in Sahitya Akademi's journal Indian Literature
by
Kamayani Bisht

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What's wrong with us Kali women?

Published by Kelsay Books, 2021, What's wrong with us Kali Women the the third book of poetry by Anita Nahal. Prescribed as compulsory reading in an elective course on Multicultural Society at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. It has also been nominated by Cyril Dabydeen, Guyanese Indian Canadian & Ottawa poet laureate emeritus & novelist as the best poetry book for 2021 for British, Ars Notoria.

(Click on the image to read full review)

Comments

What's wrong with us Kali women? (Kelsay, 2021)

Kisses at the espresso bar (Kelsay, 2022)

"Anita Nahal’s poems are reminiscent of youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman's message of resilience and like Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, Anita has persisted. Her book is a timeless work for the ages. Anita Nahal is a gift from the Hindu Goddesses whose powers she invokes in her passionate, pensive prose poetry through the eyes of an Indian American renaissance woman, deftly weaving words from two languages to paint this linguistic masterpiece."

Everett Vann Eberhardt.

J.D., (Retired) Attorney, Professor, Director of Equity, Diversity & Legal Affairs, NOVA C.C., Fairfax, US

"This collection of richly dramatic and evocative prose poems is a jewel in feminist, transnational poetics. Anita Nahal defies comfortable characterization in her writings and is irreplaceable."

Phillip Hall

Author of Sweetened in Coals; Fume; Cactus; & publisher of Burrow, Australia: https://oldwaterratpublishing.com

"Anita Nahal’s is a distinguished poetic voice. She is here to stay--to immortalize poetry and to commemorate herself. I cannot agree more with her, that there is nothing wrong with us Kali women! In solidarity and sisterhood,"

Professor Nandini Sahu

Poet, Folklorist, Director of School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi, India

"Anita Nahal’s third volume of poetry is her best till date, a monument to her astounding ability to create an infinity lemniscate, a myriad of overlapping worlds, dazzling us in and out of micro and macro universes of our most personal intimacies to burning societal issues of our time. Nahal’s work resonates C. Wright Mills adagio that no understanding of personal challenges is possible without bringing them into the wider circle of society. No bedside table, no college or university shelf that aims at opening minds to the interlinkage of important personal and societal issues should be left without a copy of Nahal’s enlightening prose poetry."

Dr. Gerrit Dielissen

Professor of Sociology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

"Writing that is so meditative and suffused with bliss! All women, especially Indian women in the Diaspora, will cling to Anita Nahal’s words like lifelines. I hope the Vice-President of the United States is fortunate enough to read these prose poems."

Joy Lalita Ford Austin

President and CEO, Joy Ford Austin Arts and Humanities Advocacy, Washington DC

"East meets West in Anita Nahal’s work. Poetry dances with prose. She is a new woman for the new world coming. A literary goddess!"

E. Ethelbert Miller

Grammy Spoken Word Poetry album
nominee 22, Writer and literary activist. He is the author of several collections of poetry and two memoirs. Miller is the host of the weekly WPFW morning radio show, On the Margin.

It’s amazing to come across a writer like Anita Nahal. In Kisses at the espresso bar, her voice enthralls as she makes the ekphrastic form her own in speaking to and about visual objects. She lifts surrealism to another level in her prose-poems with an astounding ability to evoke imagery with lush phrases--what is constantly imagined and re-imagined as she transforms sensory experience into solid art. Nahal’s aesthetic adds something new to American letters in her diverse range; her vision is grounded in the Indian tradition as East-West tropes are linked to modernity with her unique voice and style!

Cyril Dabydeen

Ottawa Poet Laureate Emeritus & author of Drums of my Flesh

Kisses at the expresso bar showcases the prolific poetic style of Anita Nahal as a true virtuoso of the English language. She performs word magic in each ekphrastic prose poem, transforming the visual into the verbal, creating caramelized associations that stick to one’s soul. Her sense and sensibility echo the famous quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince that “only the heart can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”.

Gerrit Dielissen

Professor of Sociology, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Reviews of

Hey, Spilt milk is Spilt, nothing else

(Authorspress, 2018)

Aaduna, US

20 March 2019

Lapis Lazuli, India

17 September 2018

​Confluence, UK

26 February 2019

Page 4

Confluence, UK

31 August 2020

Page 18

Anita Nahal's Writing in General

About

"Anita Nahal's poems and very short stories are like whispers of my heart! The details are in some case left to the imagination of the reader, and in some cases, graphic and so vivid...as if I am there! Anita's work reminds me of her father, and my Professor Chaman Nahal, the novelist par excellence."

Satya Narain Sharma

Former Associate Professor of English, University of Delhi

"I loved reading Anita Nahal’s Life on the Go and Hey, Spilt milk is spilt, nothing else. These books were an emotional yet an enlightening read and her stories and poems reflected the essence of maintaining the dignity of the soul in daily life. They have sensitized me on the thoughts, desires, and fears of a woman, daughter, wife, and single mother. I loved her storytelling about relationships and the challenges for a woman as an immigrant who had to straddle between two cultures—one in India, the land of her birth, and the other in the United States, her adopted country. It has aroused my feelings of compassion and the need for tenderness in this cold and violent world. My hat off to Dr. Nahal for her courage to reveal her sentimental experiences and soul! I have had the good fortune to know Dr. Nahal. As president of a Turkish American organization and when she was with Howard University, I had worked with her in promoting multi-cultural activities. One project was encouraging students at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to do a study abroad program in Turkey. We had also collaborated in developing a program on African-American and Turkish Connections through the Arts. "

G. Lincoln McCurdy

Arlington, Virginia

"Anita’s writings imbibe yet transcend the saga of an immigrant woman and mother way beyond the apparent thoughts! Like ballads, her words echo the sensibilities of empathy, compassion, and love. Her poems and flash fictions have a lyrical quality and soothe the soul. Anita’s writings also chronicle a woman’s survival through her strengths. The poet and fictionist in Anita is at her best!"

Anil Johri

Member Indian Civil Service and a Wildlife Photographer

"Anita’s poems and flash fictions are very relevant literary contributions as she immerses herself in her characters taking us most intriguingly with them in the journey of soulful, everyday life discovery! With her recently released second collection of poetry and first collection of flash fictions, she strongly establishes herself as a reputed poet in English and Diaspora writings. The pencil images in most of the poems lend visual beauty to Nahal’s work, and her poems are incisive reflections on human existence."

Dr. Roopali Sircar Gaur

Former Professor of English, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi

"Anita Nahal’s poetry and flash fictions poignantly peruses the pain, passion, purpose, and promise of life as seen through the lenses of compassion, love, and loss. Like Langston Hughes, for Anita, "Life Ain't Been No Crystal Stair." But she has weathered the storms, is still here, has broken free from the chains of bondage of others’ thoughts, come out of the ashes of the vagaries of life heaped upon her, and like Maya Angelou can proclaim, "Still I Rise.” Read her poetry and flash fictions, and be mesmerized by her voice and view of the world."

Everett Vann Eberhardt, J.D.

(Retired) Attorney, Professor, Director of Equity, Diversity & Legal Affairs, NOVA C.C., Fairfax, US

"Anita Nahal’s poems and flash fictions are extremely valuable contributions to the literature on immigration and diaspora writings. I absolutely recommend her poems and flash fiction books, as uniquely insightful, with a warm empathy for the human condition. Her books can easily be part of sociology, anthropology, literary and inter-disciplinary classes, as Nahal's work pushes us to ponder upon the issues that emerge from moving places that we might not even think about. Anita is a combination of a social scientist/historian / cultural/human analyst…a culture broker with diverse experiences…being somewhere but from somewhere else, sharing a rich nomadic perspective - a genre hopper/mixer! And Nahal writes more so with a keen eye for everyday encounters, like Humans of New York - weaving tapestries of historical/social facts with existential issues and dilemma's that should resonate with all audiences. It's the universal, ethnographical appeal in her work that will make Anita a major writer of our times."

Dr. Gerrit B.M. Dielissen

Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, Netherlands

"Anita's work is deep and endearing, and she has a sense of imagination that goes beyond traditional contemporary poetic bounds. Her writing inspires in all of us a sense of wonder, inspiration, and nostalgia for home that we can rarely attain by other forms of content attempting to represent the Indian subcontinent. I love reading her poems and her flash fictions, which make me feel that I am part of the experiences, thoughts, and feelings. I am honored to be able to read her works and share in their joy."

Atreyee Dasgupta

ABR Relocation Specialist, New Jersey, USA

Anita Nahal is a prolific poet and fictionist, who has achieved excellence in poetry and flash fiction, the latter being the latest genre trending in fiction writing today. She has creativity in her genes. Her father, Chaman Nahal, was a well-known novelist. I am sure, her pen will become more prolific, making the literary scene richer and life beautiful."

Subhash Chandra

Critic and Author

“Writing is hard work and not every writer can bring their characters to life understanding the type of readership of a publication like ours, but I am deeply impressed by Anita Nahal’s ability to take any reader with her in to her fictions and poems in such a way, tenderly weaving the emotions, people, and stories at short notice. We have been publishing Anita Nahal’s work for some time now, and her fictions and poems are always a visual treat to our readers. Anita is a truly remarkable writer and she will go far in her writings!"

Vijay Anand

Managing Editor, Confluence, UK

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