Review “Combining a heady cocktail of theft, blackmail and dysfunctional family relations with a touch of the Kafkaesque, this is a powerfully written and deeply thoughtful work.” ―Anna Scott, The Guardian“A meditative, occasionally jolting novel by Aatish Taseer, the 31-year-old son of the former governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer . . . [A] blackmail plotline provides the novel with its brutal climax--and deepens the perception that Pakistan is both decadent and abnegating, irrevocably Westernized and violently closed off. The novel's smart coda . . . does nothing to reconcile or rationalize these contradictions. No sense trying to do so, seems to be the message of this intelligent, unsettling novel--a theme only a fiction writer could express in such a satisfactory way.” ―Taylor Antrim, The Daily Beast“Naipaul's praise is rare enough to be notable; and Taseer lives up to it . . . Among the sharpest and best-written fictions about . . . contemporary India.” ―The Independent“[A] tangle of politics, murder, bribery and betrayal . . . Gripping.” ―The Observer“Noon's careful yet nimble prose captures the visceral quality of this world in decline through a keenly critical and coldly detached lens . . . Moral corruption, greed, and violence are not glamorized or sensationalized; they are recursive facts of life, eternally returning as Nietzsche would've guessed, and modern day Pakistan is not immune . . . It pops with the verve of a great detective story, filled with suspense and scandal, but also empathy and even meta-fiction.” ―Stephen Spencer, Electric Literature Read more About the Author Aatish Taseer was born in 1980. He has worked as a reporter for Time magazine and has written for The Sunday Times (London), the Financial Times, Prospect, TAR, and Esquire. He is the author of Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands (2009) and is the highly acclaimed translator of Manto: Selected Stories (2008). His novel The Temple-Goers was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award. He lives in Delhi and London. Read more
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