Temporary People

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Deepak Unnikrishnan's novel-in-stories presents a mosaic of the frenetic, fantastical, and fragmented lives of the South Asian diaspora in the United Arab Emirates, echoing the cry of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children: 'Please believe that I am falling apart.' Unlike Rushdie, Unnikrishnan focuses on the least privileged class of nomads in the twenty-first century: guest workers. This work joins the ranks of South Indian writer Benyamin's Goat Days, which depicts modern-day enslavement in Saudi Arabia, and British-Emirati director Ali Mostafa's City of Life, a film showcasing diverse lives in Dubai. Unnikrishnan offers a robust entry into the emerging portrayal of migrant labor in the Gulf, blending English, Malayalam, and Arabic in Kafkaesque parables filled with action and humor. The collection resonates with John Berger's A Seventh Man, a poignant exploration of migrant labor in Europe, which underscores a vital point reflected in Unnikrishnan's stories: countries sending migrant laborers often have no choice. While posing its questions obliquely, the collection demands explicit answers about the societal structures that shape these lives. -Shaj Mathew, The New York Times Book Review