Longlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
Fatima Bhutto is the niece of Benazir Bhutto who publicly accused her aunt of murdering her father Murtaza while she, aged 14, protected her baby brother. She tells of her ordeal in her memoir Songs of Blood and Sword. This is her first novel which she has obviously drawn from her own experience. It tells of a family of three brothers in a small town on the Pakistan/Afghan border. One is a doctor, married but with a wife badly damaged by the death (by terrorists) of their child, one a student having escaped to America to study and one caught in the insanity of local freedom fighters as he follows his love, a strong woman. Set over one day it is an exquisite book. Powerful, hypnotic, hugely sad yet very wonderful, this is a must read.
| Genres: |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction |