Book picks similar to
Cool, Sweet Water: Selected Stories by Khadija Mastoor
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I Do! Do I?
Ruchita Misra - 2014
Time to stop doing silly things and start living happily ever after, right? Well, then maybe someone should tell Kasturi that.This irrepressibly irreverent and not-quite-beaming bride-to-be fumbles through a messy engagement and in a moment of indecision, steps across a line that she should never have been near. To make things worse, her best friends are now nauseatingly mushy star-crossed lovers, her future mother-in-law thinks the kitchen-phobic Kasturi is a fabulous cook, her colleague Padma hates her for no reason, her boss wants medical intervention for her imaginary deafness and her mother has become a cyber-celebrity. This was not the way things were meant to go.Smart, hilarious and utterly unpredictable, I do! do I? will have you at the edge of your seat-unless youve already fallen off it laughing.
Deja Karma
Vish Dhamija - 2015
But Jay Singh is a closet alcoholic; he has a dark and ominous past. His mother has been accused and convicted of killing his father..something he doesn't accept even after twenty years.Flamboyant, wicket, lethal, Jay Singh never loses a case, though his methods might not always be within the law. If the law is after you - guilty or not - there is only one man who can save you. If Jay Singh takes your case, witnesses for the prosecution disappear or turn hostile, evidence evaporates, technology and science fail to provide any cogent support. What's more - Jay Singh can even provide you with an ironclad alibi.And then he gets a case that can completely destroy him.If he loses the high-profile he can kiss his career goodbye ; if he wins the case he better keep his obituary ready.
Partitions
Amit Majmudar - 2011
A young Sikh girl, Simran Kaur, has run away from her father, who would rather poison his daughter than see her defiled. And Ibrahim Masud, an elderly Muslim doctor driven from the town of his birth, limps toward the new Muslim state of Pakistan, rediscovering on the way his role as a healer. As the displaced face a variety of horrors, this unlikely quartet comes together, defying every rule of self-preservation to forge a future of hope.A dramatic, luminous story of families and nations broken and formed, "Partitions" introduces an extraordinary novelist who writes with the force and lyricism of poetry.
A Golden Age
Tahmima Anam - 2007
Her children are almost grown, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air. But no one can foresee what will happen in the days and months that follow. For this is East Pakistan in 1971, a country on the brink of war. And this family's life is about to change forever. Set against the backdrop of the Bangladesh War of Independence, 'A Golden Age' is a story of passion and revolution, of hope, faith, and unexpected heroism. In the chaos of this era, everyone must make choices. And as she struggles to keep her family safe, Rehana will be forced to face a heartbreaking dilemma.
The Black Album
Hanif Kureishi - 1995
The second novel from one of the most celebrated voices in British fiction and film, The Black Album is an exhilarating multicultural coming-of-age tale featuring Shalid, a sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll-loving Pakistani student torn between a love affair with a gorgeous, free-spirited college professor and his desire to please his conservative Muslim community.
Gumrah: 11 Short Teen Crime Stories
Ira Trivedi - 2016
Ltd this book holds tales revolving around adolescent crime, deceit, treachery and bad judgement. In ‘Soulmate’, a case of sibling rivalry leads to disastrous consequences, while in ‘Heartbreak’, the dark side of the nicest of people is exposed. ‘Naaz’ reveals how cultural differences can sometimes lead to danger and ‘Double MMS’ shows a college girl’s stabs at popularity going horribly awry.Written by bestselling author Ira Trivedi, Gumrah: 11 Short Teen Crime Stories is a must-read, with every story revealing the consequences of wrong choices. Like the show, the message of the book, aimed especially at the younger generation, is: ‘Be aware, be prepared, be safe!’
Dreams in Prussian Blue
Paritosh Uttam - 2010
So when he proposes that they drop out of college and live-in, she readily agrees. But life with Michael soon turns into an emotional rollercoaster. Temperamental, opinionated and incredibly selfish, he expects Naina to run the household so that he is free to paint. Naina tries her hand at several odd jobs, but when an accident leaves Michael blind, their life together begins to come undone as she can only helplessly watch. And in trying to pull it together, Naina is driven to being what she has never been—a liar and a cheat. Will Michael forgive her when he learns the truth? Will she forgive him for what he has done to her?
Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life & Times
Stanley Wolpert - 1993
Bhutto's political rise and fall were so meteoric that his name became a legend in the land he once ruled. Indeed, a full decade after his execution his continuing popularity ensured the election of his daughter, Benazir, to the premier position he once held. As she campaigned in Sind and Punjab, the crowds cried "Jiye Bhutto "--"Bhutto Lives "--and the Bhutto they meant was Zulfi. Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan tells the story of this remarkable life in a vivid, insightful narrative. Written by Stanley Wolpert, a leading authority on South Asia and the author of the acclaimed biography Jinnah of Pakistan, the volume traces the life of this remarkable figure from the colorful days of his feudal ancestors to his imprisonment and hanging at the hands of a military dictatorship.Bhutto, Wolpert writes, was a charismatic and contradictory man, a microcosmic reflection of Pakistan itself--a nation born out of division with India which later fell victim to its own internal split with the creation of Bangladesh. Wolpert follows him from his privileged youth in British-ruled India, to his years as a student at USC and UC Berkeley (where he sported a thin moustache, shiny two-tone shoes, and proved a keen, if rakish, fraternity brother), to Oxford and back to Pakistan. Bhutto climbed to the heights of power with amazing swiftness, winning a seat in the central Cabinet of Pakistan at the unprecedented age of thirty. Wolpert weaves Pakistan's turbulent politics and repeated wars with India together with Bhutto's ambitious maneuvering, tracing his rise to Foreign Minister, the founding of his own political movement, and finally leadership of the nation. The story of Bhutto's sometimes brilliant, sometimes quixotic career is a fascinating one, and Wolpert tells it well, through Bhutto's triumphant years in the mid-1970s, the military coup in 1977, and his treacherous imprisonment and execution in 1979. Like the nation he embodied, Bhutto led a sprawling, ambitious, and tragic existence. Wolpert's intensively researched, engagingly written account captures the scheming, the grandeur, and the contradictions of one of modern history's most fascinating figures.
What the Body Remembers
Shauna Singh Baldwin - 1999
So she is elated to learn she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner in a union beneficial to both. For Sardaji’s first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him children. Roop believes that she and Satya, still very much in residence, will be friends. But the relationship between the older and younger woman is far more complex. And, as India lurches toward independence, Sardarji struggles to find his place amidst the drastic changes.Meticulously researched and beautifully written, What the Body Remembers is at once poetic, political, feminist, and sensual.
The Shadow Throne
Aroon Raman - 2012
The victim is unlike anyone Chandra has ever seen: a white Caucasian male who has all the looks of a throwback to Greek antiquity. Soon after, Hassan calls in to report the case has been taken away from him – in all likelihood by RAW – the Research & Analysis Wing, the uber-agency of Indian intelligence.What began as a murder enquiry soon morphs into a deadly game of hide-and-seek within the shadowy world of Pakistan’s ISI and India’s RAW; and Chandra, his friend history professor Meenakshi Pirzada and Hassan find themselves in a race against time to avert a sub-continental nuclear holocaust. As the action moves to its hair-raising climax among the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, Chandra must face up to the fact that Inspector Hassan is not all that he seems …
The Wandering Falcon
Jamil Ahmad - 2011
It is a formidable world and the people who live there are constantly subjected to extremes—both of geography and of culture.The Wandering Falcon begins with a young couple, refugees from their tribe, who have traveled to the middle of nowhere to escape the cruel punishments meted upon those who transgress the boundaries of marriage and family. Their son, Tor Baz, descended from both chiefs and outlaws, becomes “The Wandering Falcon,” a character who travels throughout the tribes, over the mountains and the plains, in the towns and tents that comprise the homes of the tribal people. The media today speak about this unimaginably remote region, a geopolitical hotbed of conspiracies, drone attacks, and conflict—now, told in the rich, dramatic tones of a master storyteller, this stunning, honor-bound culture is revealed from the inside.Jamil Ahmad has written an unforgettable portrait of a world of custom and compassion, of love and cruelty, of hardship and survival, a place fragile, unknown, and unforgiving.
The Pity of Partition: Manto's Life, Times, and Work Across the India-Pakistan Divide
Ayesha Jalal - 2013
Today Manto is an acknowledged master of twentieth-century Urdu literature, and his fiction serves as a lens through which the tragedy of partition is brought sharply into focus. In The Pity of Partition, Manto's life and work serve as a prism to capture the human dimension of sectarian conflict in the final decades and immediate aftermath of the British raj.Ayesha Jalal draws on Manto's stories, sketches, and essays, as well as a trove of his private letters, to present an intimate history of partition and its devastating toll. Probing the creative tension between literature and history, she charts a new way of reconnecting the histories of individuals, families, and communities in the throes of cataclysmic change. Jalal brings to life the people, locales, and events that inspired Manto's fiction, which is characterized by an eye for detail, a measure of wit and irreverence, and elements of suspense and surprise. In turn, she mines these writings for fresh insights into everyday cosmopolitanism in Bombay and Lahore, the experience and causes of partition, the postcolonial transition, and the advent of the Cold War in South Asia.The first in-depth look in English at this influential literary figure, The Pity of Partition demonstrates the revelatory power of art in times of great historical rupture.
Unpossible and Other Stories
Daryl Gregory - 2011
His characters may be neuroscientists, superhero sidekicks, middle-aged heroes of children's stories, or fanatics spreading a virus-borne religion, but they are all convincingly human. Includes two never-before published short stories.Contents:- Daryl Gregory: Facts and Obsessions (2011) by Nancy Kress- Second Person, Present Tense (2005)- Unpossible (2007)- Damascus (2006)- The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm (2008)- Gardening at Night (2006)- Petit Mal #1: Glass (2008)- What We Take When We Take What We Need (2010)- Petit Mal #2: Digital (2011)- Message from the Bubblegum Factory (2010)- Free, and Clear (2004)- Dead Horse Point (2007)- In the Wheels (1990)- Petit Mal #3: Persistence (2011)- The Continuing Adventures of Rocket Boy (2004)- Story NotesCover art by Antonello Silverini
Secrets of the Henna Girl
Sufiya Ahmed - 2012
and dreaming of the day she'll meet her one true love. Except her parents have other plans. In Pakistan for the summer, Zeba's world is shattered. Her future is threatened by an unthinkable - and forced - duty to protect her father's honour.
Thirteen Months of Sunrise
Rania Mamoun - 2009
Rania was featured in previous PEN Award winning project, The Book of Khartoum, the first ever anthology of Sudanese short fiction in translation. The stories in this collection have been translated from Arabic into English for the first time, by translator Elisabeth Jacquette. Thirteen Months of Sunrise is part of Comma's commitment to publish writers in translation from 'banned nations' in 2018.