The Blue Taxi: A Novel [Hardcover]

N. S. Köenings (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2006

Against the backdrop of an East African city, an impossible romance between an Indian widower and a married Belgian woman unfolds under the most unlikely circumstances.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When a young boy loses a leg after being hit by a drunk driver in his East African town of Vunjamguu, the shockwaves that run through his small community force a Belgian expat housewife to re-evaluate her life. Raised by nuns in a secluded mission hospital, Sarie Turner is lonely and isolated from everyone around her, contemptuous of her social-climbing British husband, Gilbert, and at odds with her snooty British contemporaries. Against Gilbert's wishes, Sarie and her young daughter, Agatha, visit the injured boy as he recovers, and Sarie becomes infatuated with the boy's handsome, anguished widower father, Majid Jeevanjee. Sarie seduces Majid; as their affair becomes a respite from her unfulfilling marriage, her feelings toward her husband and the coterie of high-class expats change in unexpected ways. The world Köenings has created in her accomplished debut is tragic and exhilarating, as is her portrayal of weary, left-behind colonialists, poverty-stricken natives and the uneasy manner in which each regards the other. (Oct.)
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From The New Yorker

Koenings's debut novel, set in a fictional East African city in the nineteen-seventies, centers on Sarie Turner, a lumpish, naïve Belgian woman married to a British former clerk living off his uncle's beneficence. After she witnesses a bus accident in which a Muslim boy's leg is severed, she and her young daughter visit the boy's home, where she meets his father, Majid, a widower and a failed poet. Their ensuing affair liberates Sarie from her sheltered existence and Majid from his bereavement. Köenings skillfully weaves together the stories of individuals from disparate cultures converging in a city that is entering a new era of political independence, but the characters display a frustrating inertia, and this sleepwalking quality is compounded by Koenings's fondness for indulgent, at times fanciful description.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition, First Printing edition (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316010618
• ISBN-13: 978-0316010610
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #769,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Accident, A New Medium of Communication, A Widower's Waking, September 26, 2007

By 

H. Madden - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blue Taxi: A Novel (Hardcover)

A prophetic embroidress, an ice cream king, an aspiring entrepreneur, an affair: the world of Vunjamguu, East Africa, shifts in whispers. BiBi, the embroidress, notes, "It was one thing saying bravely she would take up any vision and another to commit to stitching it, in full view of her own household." N.S. Koening's Blue Taxi is not only beautifully embroidered, but also committed to rendering the difficulties of individuals as they struggle to reconcile their desires/dreams despite social and economic circumstance, as they commit (or don't commit)to their vision in full view of the larger household of Vunjamguu.

Told by a narrator who carries stories between houses and cross town, The Blue Taxi invites readers to witness the private hopes, the strengths, and the insecurities of Sari, BiBi, Majid, Gilbert, and Nisreen (among others)in the post-colony.

If you appreciate the work of Marquez, Coetzee, Zadie Smith, Eugenides, or Soyinka, you will appreciate this book. If you are unfamiliar with these authors, but searching for a beautiful and saavy story that recognizes the difficulties of love as inextricable from the the difficulites of the society that love inhabits, you will be grateful for N.S. Koenings's vision.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mesmerizing, inspiring literature, October 23, 2007

By 

Mad bin Tod "dr_grim" (Ireland, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Taxi: A Novel (Hardcover)

N.S. Koenings has created a remarkable story that challenges readers to examine assumptions about place, gender roles, the politics of colonialism and cultural practices. Using exquisite language - like that of Nabokov's Lolita and Ondaatje's The English Patient - she tells the story of subordinated housewife Sarie Turner's attempt, in 1970's Africa, to become a full person in clear command of her actions. Every passage is full of evocative imagery, longing and vision. Like many of the other characters, Sarie Turner suffers because of society's expectations. Due to the inability of those around her to imagine a world other than what they have come to expect, she loses her autonomy and her chance at respectful, transformative relationships. The book's narrator believes that the imagination can transform the world - but that such transformation takes hard work and dedication. This is a captivating and beautifully written book, one that must be read!

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful novel, May 24, 2011

By 

sikudhani - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Blue Taxi: A Novel (Hardcover)

Highly recommended. The Blue Taxi is a beautiful and beautifully written novel. It is utterly transporting--the reader is captured and whisked away to another time and place. The characters are remarkably vivid, and I find myself thinking of them long after finishing the book. I eagerly await more from NS Koenings!