Maps for Lost Lovers - Softcover

Aslam, Nadeem

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571221831 ISBN 13: 9780571221837

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2005

Synopsis

In an unnamed town Jugnu and his lover Chanda have disappeared. Rumours abound in the close-knit Pakistani community, and then on a snow-covered January morning Chanda's brothers are arrested for murder. Telling the story of the next twelve months, Maps for Lost Lovers opens the heart of a family at the crossroads of culture, community, nationality and religion, and expresses their pain in a language that is arrestingly poetic.

'This is a deeply pastoral novel, tied to the seasons and resonating with birdsong . . . Like Aslam, I was heartbroken when the dense, dark tapestry was finished.' Independent on Sunday

'Despite the violence that lies at the heart of the novel, it is a celebration of love and life. Sights and sounds, smells and colours are not so much vivid backdrops for the narrative as structural, mood- and texture-enhancing parts of it . . . This is that rare sort of book that gives a voice to those voices that are seldom heard.' Observer

About this title

Review

Maps for Lost Lovers is a stunningly brave and searingly brutal novel charting a year in the life of a working class community from the subcontinent--a group described by author Nadeem Aslam as "Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Sri Lankans living in a northern town". The older residents, who have left their homelands for the riches of England, have communally dubbed it Dasht-e-Tanhaii, which roughly translates as "the wilderness of solitude" or "the desert of loneliness". As the seasons change, from the first crystal flakes of snow that melt into "a monsoon raindrop", we slowly learn the fate of Jugnu and Chanda, a couple whose disappearance is rumoured to have been a result of their fatal decision to live in sin in a community where the phrase holds true meaning.

This uncompromisingly honest--and often uncomfortable to read--story is told through the eyes of Jugnu's brother's family who live next door. Shamas is director of the local Community Relations Council; a liberal, educated man he still mourns the passing of communism and yearns for passion in his later years. His wife Kaukub, daughter of a Pakistani cleric, is also in mourning for the passing of her devout Muslim upbringing and is forced to watch her three children turn "native". She tries increasingly desperate measures to turn them back to Islam. Pakistani-born Nadeem Aslam skilfully intertwines myths and legends with a harsh, modern reality. Tragic sub-plots of Romeo-and-Juliet proportions abound. And while some of the extended descriptive passages sit uneasily on the page and, towards the end, several rants against Islam forced through the mouths of characters become thinly-veiled lectures, nevertheless Maps for Lost Lovers is an epic work and an important milestone in British literature that deserves to be widely read by all multicultural societies seeking mutual tolerance and understanding. --Carey Green

Review

"'Despite the violence that lies at the heart of the novel, it is a celebration of love and life... This is that rare sort of book that gives a voice to those whose voices are seldom heard.' Observer; 'Nadeem Aslam is a genuinely exciting new voice, lively, confident, uninhibited and ambitious. This is one of the most impressive... novels of recent years' Salman Rushdie"

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0571221831
• ISBN 13: 9780571221837
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384