This author delves into the intricate intersections of culture, identity, and belonging. His work is characterized by a profound exploration of the human psyche and meticulous linguistic craftsmanship. He tackles themes of displacement and the search for home with remarkable patience and precision, often drawing from personal experience with migration. His literary style has drawn comparisons to esteemed writers, highlighting his distinctive voice and significant contributions to contemporary literature.
Jeo and Mikal are foster brothers from a small town in Pakistan. Though they were inseparable as children, their adult lives have diverged: Jeo is a dedicated medical student, married a year; Mikal has been a vagabond since he was fifteen, in love with a woman he can't have. But when Jeo decides to sneak across the border into Afghanistan--not to fight with the Taliban against the Americans, rather to help care for wounded civilians--Mikal determines to go with him, to protect him.
When shots ring out on the Grand Trunk Road, Nargis's life begins to crumble around her. Her husband, Massud--a fellow architect--is caught in the cross fire and dies before she can confess her greatest secret to him. Now under threat from a powerful military intelligence officer, who demands that she pardon her husband's American killer, Nargis fears that the truth about her past will soon be exposed. For weeks someone has been broadcasting people's secrets from the minaret of the local mosque, and, in a country where even the accusation of blasphemy is a currency to be bartered, the mysterious broadcasts have struck fear in Christians and Muslims alike. When the loudspeakers reveal a forbidden romance between a Muslim cleric's daughter and Nargis's Christian neighbor, Nargis finds herself trapped in the center of the chaos tearing their community apart.
Jeo and Mikal, foster-brothers from a small Pakistani city, secretly enter
Afghanistan: not to fight with the Taliban, but to help and care for wounded
civilians. But it soon becomes apparent that good intentions can't keep them
out of harm's way...
The highly acclaimed and Betty Trask Award winning debut from the author of Maps for Lost LoversA sack of letters lost in a train crash nineteen years previously has mysteriously reappeared, and the inhabitants of a small town in Pakistan are waiting anxiously to see what long buried secrets will come to light. Could the letters have any bearing on Judge Anwar's murder?In one of the most exquisite fictional debuts of recent years, Nadeem Aslam creates an exotic and timeless world, but one whose traditional rituals of everyday life are played out against an ominous backdrop of faraway civil wars, assassinations, changing regimes, and religious tensions. 'Vivid and poignant.' Evening Standard 'Poised and troubling.' The Times'A real treat.' Daily Telegraph'One of the most impressive first novels of recent years.' Salman Rushdie
If Gabriel Garcia Marquez had chosen to write about Pakistani immigrants in England, he might have produced a novel as beautiful and devastating as "Maps for Lost Lovers." Jugnu and Chanda have disappeared. Like thousands of people all over Enland, they were lovers and living together out of wedlock. To Chanda's family, however, the disgrace was unforgivable. Perhaps enough so as to warrant murder.As he explores the disappearance and its aftermath through the eyes of Jugnu's worldly older brother, Shamas, and his devout wife, Kaukab, Nadeem Aslam creates a closely observed and affecting portrait of people whose traditions threaten to bury them alive. The result is a tour de force, intimate, affecting, tragic and suspenseful.
A Russian woman named Lara arrives in Afghanistan at the house of Marcus Caldwell, an Englishman and widower living in the shadow of the Tora Bora mountains. Marcus's daughter, Zameen, may have known Lara's brother, a Soviet soldier who disappeared in the area many years previously. But like Marcus's wife, Zameen is dead; a victim of the age in which she was born. In the days that follow, further people arrive at the house: two Americans who have spent much of their adult lives in the area; a young Afghan teacher; and a radicalised young man intent on his own path. And Nadeem Aslam paints a moving, beautiful and powerful portrait of a land and a people torn apart through love and war.
A sack of letters lost in a train crash resurfaces, prompting a small town in Pakistan to uncover long-buried secrets. The author depicts an exotic world where daily rituals unfold amid distant civil wars and assassinations.
Wenn ein Leben nur in der Lüge möglich ist In dem Moment, als auf der Grand Trunk Road Schüsse zu hören sind, beginnt Nargis' Leben zu zerbrechen. Ihr Ehemann gelangt versehentlich ins Kreuzfeuer und stirbt, bevor sie ihm die Wahrheit über ihre Vergangenheit beichten kann. Schon seit Längerem fürchtet sie, dass diese bald ans Licht kommen wird: Ein Unbekannter verkündet regelmäßig Geheimnisse der Anwohner vom Minarett der örtlichen Moscheen und versetzt damit Muslime und Christen gleichermaßen in Angst. Als die Lautsprecher die verbotene Liaison ihres Nachbarn mit der Tochter des muslimischen Geistlichen aufdecken, sind die Einschläge so nah, dass Nargis handeln muss ... In der für ihn typischen leuchtenden Prosa erzählt Nadeem Aslam eine Geschichte über Fanatismus, Widerstandsvermögen und die Lügen, die manchmal nötig sind, um zu überleben. Ein mutiger, zeitgemäßer und schmerzlich schöner Roman, in dem sich Pakistans Vergangenheit und Gegenwart spiegeln.
Dzisiejszy Afganistan. Anglik Marcus Caldwell opłakuje śmierć afgańskiej żony i córki - obie poniosły ją z rąk talibów. W jego domu znajdują schronienie Lara, poszukująca śladów dawno zaginionego brata, żołnierza Armii Radzieckiej, oraz David, niegdyś gorliwy agent CIA. Napięcie narasta, gdy przypadkowo trafiają tam fanatyczny wyznawca dżihadu i buntownicza miejscowa nauczycielka. Nadzwyczaj wnikliwa interpretacja ścierających się przekonań i splecionych losów ukazana jest na tle scenerii surowej, pełnej ruin, a jednak przywodzącej na myśl iluminacje perskich miniaturzystów. To nie tylko umiejscowiona gdzieś pod Dżalalabadem metafora współczesnego człowieka mierzącego się z odwiecznymi demonami. To obnażający potwornego barbarzyńcę w człowieku, żarliwy protest przeciw piekielnościom wojny. To wreszcie piękna, pełna liryzmu elegia na śmierć i... życie. `Są w tej książce epizody pełne takiego żaru, że trzeba na chwilę ją zamknąć i zaczerpnąć tchu, by móc dalej czytać. Są obrazy tak oszałamiające, że trzeba się zatrzymać i jeszcze raz przeczytać dany passus, by móc smakować czyste piękno tego języka`. Independent Mieszkający w Anglii Pakistańczyk Nadeem Aslam jest autorem powieści Season of the Rainbirds oraz Mapy dla zagubionych kochanków (prestiżowa Nagroda Kiryama). Bezowocne czuwanie zebrało entuzjastyczne recenzje, stawiające autora na równi z Tołstojem i Hemingwayem.
