RaveBOMB MagazineDeepak Unnikrishnan's collection of linked stories, Temporary People, employs surrealism, magical realism, and notes of paranoia to picture life in the emirate of Abu Dhabi… The standard Emirati narrative is by now familiar: gross wealth and inequality, gross mistreatment of its labor force … People come to work, but when their contract is up, they must leave … Unnikrishnan's book is remarkable for individualizing these stories, rather than politicizing them, as well as brave …gives voice to the people who live here and reveals the uniqueness of the whole experiment … Unnikrishnan's version of the Emirates share something of the claustrophobic strangeness of early twentieth-century Prague as well as its tendency for anthropomorphic insecthood … This is a book of laborers and their stories, but announces a dawning political issue that transcends their specific woes.
