Kartography

Description

Shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize By the acclaimed winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 Soul mates from birth, Karim and Raheen finish one another's sentences, speak in anagrams and lie spine to spine. They are irrevocably bound to one another and to Karachi, Pakistan. It beats in their hearts - violent, polluted, corrupt, vibrant, brave and ultimately, home. As the years go by they let a barrier of silence build between them until, finally, they are brought together during a dry summer of strikes and ethnic violence and their relationship is poised between strained friendship and fated love.

Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels: In the City by the Sea (shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Salt and Saffron; Kartography (also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Broken Verses; Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction) and A God in Every Stone, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Home Fire was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017, shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award, and won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018. Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist in 2013. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London. @kamilashamsie

A touching love story, with the city of Karachi beating at its heart * Daily Mail * Deftly woven and provocative ... Shamsie's blistering humour and ear for dialogue scorches through their whirl of whisky and witticisms * Observer * A boisterous tribute to her home town that crackles with the chaos of Pakistani political life * The Times * You will notice very quickly that you're reading a book by someone who can write ... Above all, Kartography is a love story. And if you're not sniffling by, or in fact on, page 113, you're reading the wrong book * Guardian * Perceptive, funny and poignant * Times Literary Supplement * A gorgeous novel of perimeters and boundaries, of the regions - literal and figurative - in which we're comfortable moving about and those through which we'd rather not travel * Los Angeles Times *