The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon
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4,0 • 1 note
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
Fatima Bhutto's stunning debut novel The Shadow of the Crescent Moon begins and ends one rain swept Friday morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border.
Three brothers meet for breakfast. Soon after, the eldest, recently returned from America, hails a taxi to the local mosque. The second, a doctor, goes to check in at his hospital. His troubled wife does not join the family that morning. No one knows where Mina goes these days. And the youngest, the idealist, leaves for town on a motorbike. Seated behind him is a beautiful, fragile girl whose life and thoughts are overwhelmed by the war that has enveloped the place of her birth.
Three hours later their day will end in devastating circumstances.
The Shadow of the Crescent Moon chronicles the lives of five young people trying to live and love in a world on fire. Individuals are pushed to make terrible choices. And, as the events of this single morning unfold, one woman is at the centre of it all.
'A first novel of uncommon poise and acuity, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is set in an old and protracted war for land and dignity. But its swift and suspenseful narrative describes a fiercely contemporary battle in the human heart: between the seductive fantasy of personal freedom and the tenacious claims of family, community and history.' Pankaj Mishra
Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul, grew up in Damascus, and lives in Karachi. This is her first novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bhutto's promising debut novel is set in the town of Mir Ali, in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The story begins and ends one tragic Friday morning. Aman Erun, the eldest of three brothers, has returned to his native Mir Ali from America an educated, ambitious businessman. The middle brother, Sikandar, a doctor who lost a son to Taliban violence, has chosen to stay in his war-torn birthplace, accepting the unending conflict while watching his wife, Mina, succumb to madness. The youngest, Hayat, is a quiet member of a Shia separatist group and has become involved with Samarra, the headstrong girlfriend Aman Erun left behind when he went to America. In flashbacks we learn of Aman Erun's escape to America, and of Sikandar's crippling cowardice when he and Mina are confronted by Taliban rebels. In the end, Mina and Samarra prove to be stronger and more courageous than all three brothers put together. Bhutto was 14 when her father was murdered, and she's the young niece of Benazir Bhutto (a Pakistani politician and two-term prime minister who herself was assassinated in 2007). There are large swaths of political rumination: these passages are enlightening but ultimately unnecessary. Though the book is marred by an ending that strains belief, Bhutto's characters and story are compelling and richly drawn.
