If you want to read a spectacular collection of time-warping stories, look no further than The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad. In these gorgeously bizarre tales, the past wriggles gleefully into the present. Ahmad places figures from yore into modern worlds, setting them loose, untethered by history. Meandering across centuries, Let’s Play Dead is a stonkingly brilliant opening story that channels Anne Boleyn’s marvellous resurrection.
Despite King Henry’s medley of murderous methods, Anne continually rises again with a vengeance; denying the tragic repetition of wives who died in her wake. In the seductive Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune, Joan of Arc raises hell in 1926, possessing the dreams of Claribel, a housekeeper pursued by her past. It Was Probably a Very Nice Day pictures the plight of the young Romanov sisters, forsaken by their parents – who they haunt wistfully at sea.
Read more:
- Departure(s) by Julian Barnes review – a swan song of wit and grace
- Drifting North by Dominic Hinde review – intimately moving and expansive
- Looking Down at the Stars by Christina Riley review – sumptuous and beautiful nature writing
The Napoleons are Multiplying wrestles with the existential dilemmas generated by a rash of petulant Napoleons inhabiting a 19th-century house-share. Choose Your Own Apocalypse unravels the decisions taken by a female scientist working under the thrum of Oppenheimer’s atomically cruel commands.
My favourite piece, The Wolves limns a world where men are turned to beasts by warmongering for Genghis Khan. As wolves ravage the night, women must flee under the moon’s curfew.
Overall, Ahmad’s collection is a cornucopia of gobstopping stories, richly told. Though a couple are a little chewy, most are utterly delicious. From Ibn Battuta to Marilyn Monroe, join this séance of legends at the dinner table, and feast if you dare.
