SOURCE: "Allistair Ramgoolam Does Well to be Uneasy," in New York Times Book Review, August 17, 1986, Sec. 7, p. 10.

Below, Kureishi favorably assesses the collection Digging up the Mountain, describing his favorite stories in the book.

The superb short stories in Neil Bissoondath's first collection are alive with movement and flight, leaving and returning, insecurity and impermanence. Peopled by exiles and immigrants, deracines and runaways—perhaps the true representatives of the mobile 20th century—these are tales of two worlds, usually the Caribbean and Canada—and of those who are stretched between the two.

Like his uncles, V. S. Naipaul and the late Shiva Naipaul, he has much to tell us about areas that have not been written about before. His stories recall theirs in subject matter, though he promises to have more range than V. S. Naipaul, and he can write plausible women characters.

The title story, "Digging Up...