Literary Criticism

The Nation
At Macondo Pharmacy,” The Nation, June 14/21, 2021
Coming Home,” The Nation, February 11, 2020
India’s Missing Women,” Review essay, July 7-14, 2014

The New Republic 
The Grammar of Oppression,” a review essay on race, caste and Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, December 2020
The United States’ Debt to Immigrants,” a review of Suketu Mehta’s This Land Is Our Land, June 25, 2019

The New York Times Book Review
Two Divergent Girlhoods in Ghana, United by Debt,” Review of Peace Adzo Medie’s Nightbloom, July 30, 2023
Perpetual Sorrow,” Review of Kat Chow’s Seeing Ghosts, September 26, 2021
A Stirring Family Saga Tells a Taboo History of Vietnam,” Review of Quyen Phan Que Mai’s The Mountains Sing, March 17, 2020
Missing Children,” Review of Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive, March 10, 2019
Mother Lode,” Review of Aida Edemariam’s Wife’s Tale, May 13, 2018
“Instruments of Memory,” Review of Vaddey Ratner’s Music of the Ghosts, May 28, 2017
Writer’s Retreat,” Review of Tim Finch’s House of Journalists, October 1, 2013
Tale of a Puerto Rican Plantation Mistress,” Review of Esmeralda Santiago’s Conquistadora, July 20, 2011
Homeland Revisited,” Review of Anand Giridharadas’ India Calling, January 7, 2011
All Souls Rising,” Review of Isabel Allende’s Island Beneath the Sea, April 29, 2010
Song of India,” Review of Amit Chaudhuri’s The Immortals, October 22, 2009
Sleeping with the Enemy,” Review of Ana Menendez’ The Last War, June 24, 2009
Vulnerable in Morocco,” Review of Laila Lalami’s Secret Son, June 4, 2009
Exile’s Return,” Review of Azadeh Moaveni’s Honeymoon in Tehran, February 26, 2009
A Passage from India,” Review of Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, November 28, 2008
Bilateral Commitments,” Review of Sana Krasikov’s One More Year, Sept. 5, 2008

Washington Post Book World
Review of Azar Nafisi’s Read Dangerously, April 29, 2022
Review of Qui Xialong’s Years of Red Dust, Nov. 4, 2010
Review of Laura Restrepo’s No Place for Heroes, July 20, 2010

Prospect Magazine (UK)
Songs of Themselves,” a review essay about Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among Elephants, July 2018

The Boston Review (online)
Masters and Servants,” an essay about novels by Neel Mukherjee and V.S. Naipaul, May 8, 2018

Dissent 
“Edifices of Empire,” an essay on racial capitalism, Stuart Hall’s memoir Familiar Stranger and Peter Hudson’s Bankers and Empire, Spring 2018

Los Angeles Review of Books 
Rescued From the Footnotes of History,” an essay about recuperating the only known text by an indentured immigrant in the English-speaking Caribbean, March 20, 2018

Lapham’s Quarterly (online)
A Good Story, If I Can Remember It,” profile of anti-apartheid editor and novelist Sylvester Stein, August 16, 2016

The Caribbean Review of Books
Risker, Risk,” Review essay about Rupert Roopnaraine’s The Sky’s Wild Noise and Walter Rodney, July 2015

Ms. Magazine
Review of Rafia Zakaria’s The Upstairs Wife, Winter 2015
Review of Amana Fontanella Khan’s Pink Sari Revolution, Summer 2013
Review of Anchee Min’s The Cooked Seed, Spring 2013
Dead Woman Talking,” Review of Megan Voysey-Braig’s Till We Can Keep an Animal, Fall 2009
Review of Monica Ali’s Alentejo Blue, Summer 2006
An East-West Affair,” Review of Samina Ali’s Madras on Rainy Days, Winter 2003/2004

Columbia Magazine
“Mirror, Mirror,” Review of Daniel Alarcon’s At Night We Walk in Circles, Fall 2013

The (London) Observer
Review of When London Was Capital of America, August 28, 2010

The National (The Abu Dhabi Review)
Conflicted Feelings,” Review of Chang-Rae Lee’s The Surrendered, June 4, 2010
A Master of the Art,” Review of Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America, March 26, 2010
“A Way in the World,” Review of Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart

Philadelphia Inquirer
Review of Amitav Ghosh’s “Incendiary Circumstances,”  April 9, 2006

The Austin American-Statesman
“The Plod of Small Things,” Review of Amit Chaudhari’s A New World,  December 24, 2000
“The New Voices of India,” Reviews of Pankaj Mishra’s The Romantics and Raj Kamal Jha’s The Blue Bedspread, August 20, 2000

Salon
Review of Shay Youngblood’s “Black Girl in Paris,”  February 16, 2000

Philadelphia City Paper
20 Questions: Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri,”  September 16, 1999

Newsday
Caught Between Worlds, Shadows and Light,”  Review of Marina Budhos’ Professor of Light,”April 14, 1999