Five years since the release of The Bones of Grace (Daily Star Books, 2016), the Bengal Trilogy author Tahmima Anam has just published her fourth novel, The Startup Wife (Canongate, 2021), this week. Anam will be in conversation with journalist Georgina Godwin at today's Hay Festival session at 3 PM GMT (8 PM Bangladesh time). The event is virtual and free to register.

In a break from the historical saga of her earlier novels, which followed three generations of the Haque family against the Bangladeshi liberation war and its aftermath, The Startup Wife features protagonist Asha Ray, an MIT-trained coder on the track to "revolutionize artificial intelligence". A chance encounter with her high school crush leads Asha down an entirely unanticipated path, and the result is a story through which Anam reflects, with humour, on the implications of technology and human connections through a feminist lens.

"I'm looking forward to talking about the inspiration behind the book, how I came to write it, and how I just want to make people laugh (and think) with this", Tahmima Anam told The Daily Star.

One of the biggest international literary events to take place every year, this year's Hay Festival is being broadcasted online for free due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to Tahmima Anam, today's itinerary includes The House of Spirits author Isabelle Allende, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, The Hate U Give author Angie Thomas, The Shadow King author Maaza Mengiste, and more.

"I'm really looking forward to the session with Noam Chomsky, whom I have long admired", Anam said.

A review of The Startup Wife will soon be available at Daily Star Books.

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