Basharat Peer

Basharat Peer was a teenager when the separatist movement exploded in Kashmir in 1989. Over the following years countless young men, seduced by the romance of the militant, fuelled by feelings of injustice, crossed over the Line of Control to train in Pakistani army camps. Peer was sent off to boarding school in Aligarh to keep out of trouble. He finished college and became a journalist in Delhi. But Kashmirangrier, more violent, more hopeless was never far away. In 2003, the young journalist left his job and returned to his homeland to search out the stories and the people which had haunted him. In Curfewed Night he draws a harrowing portrait of Kashmir and its people. Here are stories of a young man's initiation into a Pakistani training camp; a mother who watches her son forced to hold an exploding bomb; a poet who finds religion when his entire family is killed. Of politicians living in refurbished torture chambers and former militants dreaming of discotheques; of idyllic villages rigged with landmines, temples which have become army bunkers, and ancient sufi shrines decapitated in bomb blasts. And here is finally the old story of the return home and the discovery that there may not be any redemption in it.

Curfewed Night

Beautifully written, brutally honest and deeply hurtful. Khushwant Singh.Basharat Peer was a teenager when the separatist movement exploded in Kashmir in 1989. Over thefollowing years countless young men, seduced by the romance of the militant, fuelled by feelingsof injustice, crossed over the Line of Control to train in Pakistani army camps. Peer was sent off toboarding school in Aligarh to keep out of trouble. He finished college and became a journalist inDelhi. But Kashmir-angrier, more violent, more hopeless-was never far away.In 2003, the young journalist left his job and returned to his homeland to search out the stories andthe people which had haunted him. In Curfewed Night he draws a harrowing portrait of Kashmirand its people. Here are stories of a young man s initiation into a Pakistani training camp; a motherwho watches her son forced to hold an exploding bomb; a poet who finds religion when his entirefamily is killed. Of politicians living in refurbished torture chambers and former militants dreamingof discotheques; of idyllic villages rigged with landmines, temples which have become armybunkers, and ancient sufi shrines decapitated in bomb blasts. And here is finally the old story of thereturn home-and the discovery that there may not be any redemption in it.Lyrical, spare, gutwrenching and intimate, Curfewed Night is a stunning book and an unforgettableportrait of Kashmir in war.

Neoliberals thought capitalism would bring about democracy, civil liberties, and human rights everywhere. But that is fast becoming an illusion, particularly in the East, where traditionalist and nationalist leaders are attracting religious, rural, or newly urban constituencies and ushering in an era of illiberal democracies. Peer, who was born in Kashmir and wrote with passion and intelligence about his native land in his acclaimed first book,Curfewed Night, reports from two of the world's largest democracies--Narendra Modi's India and Recep Tyyip Erdogan's Turkey--and examines how two charismatic strongmen came to power and moved their country in the direction of authoritarianism.

India, Turkey, and the Return of Strongmen

A Question of Order

Since 1989, when the separatist movement exploded in Kashmir, more than 70,000 people have been killed in the battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Born and raised in the war-torn region, Basharat Peer brings this little-known part of the world to life in haunting, vivid detail.. Peer reveals stories from his youth as well as gut-wrenching accounts of the many Kashmiris he met years later, as a reporter. He chronicles a young man’s initiation into a Pakistani training camp; a mother who watches as her son is forced to hold an exploding bomb; a poet who finds religion when his entire family is killed. He writes about politicians living in refurbished torture chambers, idyllic villages rigged with landmines, and ancient Sufi shrines decimated in bomb blasts.. Curfewed Night is a tale of a man’s love for his land, the pain of leaving home, and the joy of return—as well as a fiercely brave piece of literary reporting..

One Kashmiri Journalist's Frontline Account of Life, Love, and War in His Homeland

"Curfewed Night" is Peer's powerful memoir about growing up in war-torn Kashmir.

Basharat Peer

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