Uzma Aslam Khan

Set in the Andaman Islands over the course of oppressive imperial regimes, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali is a complex, gripping homage to those omitted from the collective memory. Nomi and Zee are Local Borns--their father a convict condemned by the British to the Andaman Islands, their mother shipped off with him. The islands are an inhospitable place, despite their surreal beauty. In this unreliable world, the children have their friend Aye, the pet hen Priya and the distracted love of their parents to shore them up from one day to the next. Meanwhile, within the walls of the prison, Prisoner 218 D wages a war on her jailers with only her body and her memory. When war descends upon this overlooked outpost of Empire, the British are forced out and the Japanese move in. Soon the first shot is fired and Zee is forced to flee, leaving Nomi and the other islanders to contend with a new malice. The islands--and the seas surrounding them--become a battlefield, resulting in tragedy for some and a brittle kind of freedom for others, who find themselves increasingly entangled in a mesh of alliances and betrayals. Ambitiously imagined and hauntingly alive, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali writes into being the interwoven stories of people caught in the vortex of history, powerless yet with powers of their own: of bravery and wonder, empathy and endurance. Uzma Aslam Khan's extraordinary new novel is an unflinching and lyrical page-turner, an epic telling of a largely forgotten chapter in the history of the subcontinent.

The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali

His belief systems challenged by his American education, Pakistani student Daanish falls in love with silk farmer's daughter Dia, whose permissive and modern upbringing compromises the traditional and repressive practices of both of their families. A first novel. Reader's Guide available. Reprint.

A Novel

Trespassing

Set in 1970s and '80s Pakistan, a young math whiz called Noman writes pseudoscience for his father's cohort of religious extremists while secretly gravitating toward a diehard evolutionist and his adventurous granddaughter, Amal. Amal's blind younger sister, Mehwish, tries to decipher a world she cannot see but understands better than most.

The Geometry of God

Thinner Than Skin

Libertatea de a iubi

Thinner than Skin is a riveting novel about identity and belonging. It’s also a love story: between a young Pakistani man trying to make his way as photographer in America, and the daughter of a Pakistani father and German mother brought up in the US, who wants to return to a country she’s never seen. Together they make the trip to Pakistan, where a chance meeting with a young nomad changes their lives, and the lives of those around them, forever. The novel is also a love letter to the wilds of Northern Pakistan, to glaciers, to the old Silk Road, and to the nomadic life of the indigenous people in the Northern territories, where China encroaches and Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Russians, Chinese, and Afghans all come together to trade.

Thinner than Skin

Nomi och Zee tillhör De Infödda – deras far dömdes en gång i tiden till att sitta av sitt fängelsestraff på de isolerade Andamanöarna, och när fängelsetiden är över måste han bli kvar med sin familj och odla upp marken åt britterna. Öarna är en ogästvänlig plats trots sin surrealistiska skönhet, trots att de kallats ett fångarnas paradis . När andra världskriget bryter ut avfyras snart det första skottet i Nomis by, och Zee tvingas fly. Kvar blir Nomi, som försöker förhandla med ödet och rädda sin älskade familj. Men när makten över öarna skiftar fram och tillbaka mellan britterna och japanerna är bara en sak säker: ingen är på Nomis och Zees sida. Den fantastiska sanna historien om Nomi Ali är en tät och lyrisk iscensättning av ett glömt kapitel i historien, men också en drabbande historia om maktlöshet, mod och mirakel, och om kampen för att upprätthålla sin värdighet och medmänsklighet även under de svåraste förhållanden. Det här är en berättelse du inte vill missa! The Tribune UZMA ASLAM KHAN är född och uppvuxen i Pakistan, men bor nu i USA. Hon fick sitt genombrott med den hyllade Trådarna i väven (2004). Den fantastiska sanna historien om Nomi Ali är hennes femte roman.

Uzma Aslam Khan

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