by Tahmima Anam
First published 2011
Maya Haque returns to Dhaka after years as a medical worker in rural clinics, seeking to reconnect with her brother Seddiq. But the brother who once fought in Bangladesh's liberation war has transformed into a conservative religious leader, his radical Islamic beliefs driving a wedge between them. As Maya struggles to understand Seddiq's dramatic personal transformation, she confronts the painful aftermath of their country's violent past and the growing fundamentalist movement threatening to reshape their society. Their fractured relationship becomes a microcosm of Bangladesh's own internal conflict—between secular hope and religious orthodoxy, between memory and forgetting, between individual freedom and communal belief. At its heart, this is a story of siblings trying to rebuild connection in a world irrevocably changed by war and ideology.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: ideological-conflict, siblings
Setting: Bangladesh
304 pages · Hardcover · Canongate Books Ltd
Content warnings: violence