Broken Verses - by Kamila Shamsie (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Fourteen years ago, famous Pakistani activist Samina Akram disappeared. Two years earlier, her lover, Pakistan's greatest poet, was beaten to death by government thugs. In present-day Karachi, her daughter Aasmaani has just discovered a letter in the couple's private code--a letter that could only have been written recently.

Aasmaani is thirty, single, drifting from job to job. Always left behind whenever Samina followed the Poet into exile, she had assumed that her mother's disappearance was simply another abandonment. Then, while working at Pakistan's first independent TV station, Aasmaani runs into an old friend of Samina's who gives her the first letter, then many more. Where could the letters have come from? And will they lead her to her mother?

Merging the personal with the political, Broken Verses is at once a sharp, thrilling journey through modern-day Pakistan, a carefully coded mystery, and an intimate mother-daughter story that asks how we forgive a mother who leaves.

From the Back Cover

In 1986 Pakistan's greatest poet was found brutally murdered, beaten to death by government thugs. Two years later his lover, blazing beauty and fearless activist Samina Akram, disappeared. Her daughter, Aasmani, has always assumed her mother abandoned her--since she had left so many times before, following the Poet into exile.
But now, working at Pakistan's first independent TV station, Aasmani runs into an old friend of her mother's who hands her a letter written--recently--in the Poet and Samina's secret code. As more letters arrive, Aasmani becomes certain that the Poet is still alive, and that he will lead her to Samina, if only she can find him. Despite menacing signs, the disbelief of her family, and the worries of her new lover, Aasmani decodes the letters and searches for their source. But if she manages to locate it, what will she find?
Merging the personal with the political, "Broken Verses "is at once a sharp, thrilling journey through modern-day Pakistan, a carefully coded mystery, and an intimate mother-daughter story that asks how to forgive a mother who leaves.
Praise for "Kartography"
"This 30-year-old has been described as a young Anita Desai, and her third book . . . is worth all the prepublication fuss."--"Harper's Bazaar"
"A gorgeous novel."--"Los Angeles Times"
"[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her high-flying intelligence."--"San Francisco Chronicle"
KAMILA SHAMSIE is the author of four novels. She has been twice short-listed for the John Llewelyn Rhys Award and is the recipient of two prizes from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan. She lives in London and Karachi and serves as a visiting professor of English at Hamilton College.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR BROKEN VERSES "[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her high-flying intelligence." --San Francisco Chronicle "This 30-year-old has been described as a young Anita Desai, and her third book, about childhood, love, life and high society in Karachi during the turbulent 1990s, is worth all the prepublication fuss." --Harper's Bazaar "A fresh literary look at modern-day Pakistan...[a] beautiful meditation on love, forgiveness, and letting go." --Entertainment Weekly "Richly woven...There is a succulent pleasure to the narrative that draws you happily to its end." --The Guardian "This is also a story about parents and children, about Aasmaani trying to make peace with her strange childhood. It is a story about love, as Aasmaani and Shehnaz's son find themselves drawn to each other. And there's politics, to boot. The political backdrop-criticism of America, anxiety about the role of fundamentalists in Pakistani government-remains just that, a backdrop; it never overshadows, but rather somehow expands, the story...A thoroughly captivating tale." --Kirkus Reviews (starred) "Intriguing, shimmeringly intelligent...Shamsie's crowning triumph." --Publishers Weekly --

About the Author

KAMILA SHAMSIE is the author of five novels: In the City by the Sea, Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Salt and Saffron, Broken Verses and Burnt Shadows, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and has been translated into more than 20 languages. She is a trustee of English PEN and Free Word, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and one of Granta's 20 Best Young British Writers of 2013. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London.