The Wasted Vigil Nadeem Aslam

The Wasted Vigil  Nadeem Aslam

Overview:

How Buddha Survived the Taliban!

"This is that rare sort of book that gives a voice to those whose voices are seldom heard."
-- The Observer

"Unforgettable...Tragic and beautifully written. Aslam is a major writer."
-- A.S. Byatt

"The best novel I read this year."
-- Colm Toibin, Guardian Books of the Year

From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers, a new novel, at once beautiful and blistering, about war today told through the lives of five people who come together by chance-and tragically revealed circumstance- in post--9/11 Afghanistan.

Five disparate lives intersect through decades of invasion, occupation, and violence. There's Marcus, an English expat who was married to an outspoken Afghan doctor-she was murdered by the Taliban-who opens his home to the others, the house itself a strange and beautiful monument to the inconceivable losses his family suffered . . . David, an American, formerly a spy, who has seen the Afghans through the invasion of the Russians, the domination of the Taliban, and, now, the incursion of the Americans, and who has seen his own ideas of purpose and reason turned inside out . . . Lara, from St. Petersburg, looking for evidence of her brother, a Russian soldier who disappeared years before . . . Casa, a young Afghan whose hatred of the Americans has plunged him into the blinding depths of zealotry . . . and James, an American soldier in the Special Forces in whom David sees a dangerous revival of the unquestioning notions of right and wrong that he himself once held.

In mesmerizing, expressive prose, Aslam reveals the intertwining paths that these characters have travelled, and the complex ties-of love and desperation, pain and salvation, madness and clarity-that bind them. Through their stories emerges a portrait both timely and timeless, panoramic and achingly intimate, of the "continuation of wars" that has shaped, and continues to shape, our world. In its combination of radiant language, hypnotic imagery, and unflinching drama, The Wasted Vigil is a luminous work of fiction.

The note of hope the novel ends on is poignant, without being maudlin. This is a book where each word, each punctuation mark, should be savoured.

ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!