Catagory: Fiction

Jhootha Sach is arguably the most outstanding piece of Hindi literature written about the Partiton. Reviving life in Lahore as it was before 1947, the book opens on a nostalgic note, with vivid descriptions of the people that lived in the city’s streets and lanes like Bhola Pandhe Ki Gali: Tara, who wanted an education above marriage; Puri, whose ideology and principles often came in the way of his impoverished circumstances; Asad, who was ready to sacrifice his love for the sake of communal harmony. Their lives-and those of other memorable characters-are forever altered as the carnage that ensues on the eve of Independence shatters the beauty and peace of the land, killing millions of Hindus and Muslims, and forcing others to leave their homes forever. Published in English translation for the first time, Yashpal’s controversial novel is a politically charged, powerful tale of human suffering.

Dishing up the dirt on the bold, the beautiful and the downright ugly from Karachi’s hottest page 3 parties! Amynah Farooqui writes ‘Party Queen on the Scene’, a weekly anonymous gossip column for a Karachi magazine. Amynah, who makes no apologies for her life of casual sex and recreational drugs, is the polar opposite of her best friends, Mumtaz and Henna, whom she wishes would lighten up-especially Mumtaz, who is too uptight to be the daughter of a drug baron. When party regular Monty Mohsin starts raking in the moolah producing a reality TV show called Who Wants to Be a Terrorist? Mumtaz decides to cash in on the trend by making a documentary on violence against women in Pakistan. And the ever-resourceful Amynah finds the perfect subject in Nilofer, Henna’s childhood friend from the village. As filming begins, it becomes obvious that each of them has their own agenda-including Nilofer, who’s not as helpless and innocent as she seems. The stress of the project, along with pressure from Henna’s politician father, draws the friends apart. Then tragedy strikes and changes their lives forever. Maha Khan Phillips’s Beautiful from This Angle is a sensational debut that serves up a cocktail of Chanel and cocaine, fundoos and feudalism, while on the search for love and happiness among Pakistan’s swish set.

a broken-hearted Kaushik arrives in the small, sleepy town of Valai, leaving his disturbing past behind. And even as Valai proves to be anything but slow and laid-back, with all its scandals and rumour-mongering, Kaushik falls in love again – this time with Vivek. However, the rush of love he feels for this young, innocent village boy is not without it sdilemmas; is it the right thing to do? would Vivek understand if Kaushik tells him the truth about his sexuality? As his love becomes an obsession, life turns into a game of manipulation for Kaushik. Until destiny intervenes and takes him on a course that he neither has any control over nor is able to change. Vivek and I is a powerful novel about sexuality, falling in love and learning to let go.

‘I want to play a game with you.’

‘A game?’

‘Yes. Hope I can trust you.’

‘Of course.’

She handed over a small envelope and said; ‘Open this the day I tell you to. And if you open it earlier; I will come to know about it.’

‘What is in it?’

‘A time bomb.’

Aarav will do anything to get to the top of his organization. He will betray his colleagues; submit incorrect reports; sleep with the sexy and crafty Sonali; even abandon his disapproving wife in the middle of a romantic trip to London. Sonali uses his ambitious streak; promising to take him right to where he wants to be; if he does what she says.

In his mad scramble to the top; does Aarav know what he is getting into?

Is it as rosy up there as he imagined?

What is Sonali’s real game?

With or without You is for all those who have struggled to keep their jobs from ruining their lives.

In Moazzamabad, UP, too large to be a town and too backward to be a city, a young man stabs a police inspector and is beaten to death. The last words he speaks are, ‘My name is Jimmy the Terrorist.’ Journalists descend on the town, ‘like shrill birds’, and a long-time resident decides to tell a story that none of them will know.

Jimmy was once Jamaal, son of Rafiq Ansari of Rasoolpur Mohalla, a Muslim neighbourhood in a Hindu town. And his story goes back a long way: to the time when Moazzamabad was named, after Aurangzeb’s son; when Rafiq was seduced by the wealth and refinements of Shabbir Manzil and married Shaista; when the Hanuman temple grew ten storeys high and the head priest was elected mayor; when Shaista died, a mosque was brought down in Ayodhya and Rafiq became a mullah. As Jamaal grows up, watching both his father and his neighbourhood change and curfew reach Moazzamabad, he is changed himself. He becomes Jimmy, one among the countless marginalized trying to find a place in the world, dimly aware that the choices that shape their lives are being made in distant places, where they have no influence.

Shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize 2009, this spare, compelling novel, as intimate as it is political, confirms Omair Ahmad’s reputation as one of the most distinctive and exciting new voices in Indian fiction.