Aatish Taseer Book order

"A portrait of the collision between tradition and modernity in India, as told through the lives of the Brahmins in the holy city of Benares"-- Provided by publisher

Skanda's father, Toby, has died, estranged from Toby's mother and from the India he loved. Skanda is tasked with fulfilling Toby's final wish and returning his ashes to his birthplace. It is a journey that takes him from Manhattan to Delhi, and deep into the story of his family: in particular, to a night three decades earlier, when an act of shocking violence forced his parents' fragile marriage apart. Set at flashpoints in 1975, 1984, 1992 and the present day, The Way Things Were shows how our most deeply personal stories are shaped by ancient history and volatile politics; how the life of a country and the life of an individual are irrevocably entwined. Spanning three generations, it is at once intimate and panoramic, with a thrilling ambition that places it alongside such masterpieces as A Suitable Boy and A Fine Balance.

Set over two decades of convulsive change, Noon is the moving story of Rehan Tabassum, a young man whose heart is split across two cultures' troubled divide. Rehan's mother and her new husband are the embodiment of a dazzling, emergent India. Yet as the old, muted order of dust and shortages recedes, Rehan finds himself unmoored. With his father still a powerful shadow across the border in Pakistan, Rehan's journey begins: through lands of sudden wealth and hidden violence, in an atmosphere of political quicksand and moral danger, towards the centre of a dark, shifting world. Noon is a startling and incisive novel from a brilliant young writer, uniquely placed to bear witness to some of the most urgent questions of our times.

Part thriller, part investigation of male friendship, part exploration of the tension between traditional values and modern liberalism in Indian society

What does it mean to be a young Muslim in the twenty-first century? When Aatish Taseer receives a challenging letter from his estranged father in Pakistan, he decides to set off on an expedition across the Islamic world in search of his own Islamic heritage, as well as to discover how other young people across the Middle East felt about theirs. In a post-9/11 world Aatish is forced to confront himself and his relationship with the religious and secular worlds he moves in, as one of many 'crisis children living on the faultline of Islam and modernity.' He explores issues of identity and religious self-discovery with a fascinating cross-section of people ranging from transvestites in full hijab in Istanbul, and Norwegians considering conversions in Damascus, to Hare Krishnas in Tehran.As he travels, Aatish tells the story of his own family over the past fifty years. It is an absorbing and thought-provoking journey which culminates in an emotional reunion between Aatish and his father in Lahore, on a day that brings home the stark reality of attempts to reconcile old belief systems and liberal reform in a divided region where East meets West.