Product Description

Hasan is eleven years old. He loves cricket, pomegranates, the night sky, his clever, vibrant artistic mother and his etymologically obsessed lawyer father, and he adores his next-door neighbour Zehra. One early summer morning, while lazing happily on the roof, Hasan watches a young boy flying a yellow kite fall to his death. Soon after, Hasan's idyllic, sheltered family life is shattered when his beloved uncle Salman, a dissenting politician, is arrested and charged with treason. Set in a land ruled by an oppresive military regime, this eloquent, charming and quietly political novel vividly recreates the confusing world of a young boy on the edge of adulthood, and beautifully illustrates the transformative power of the imagination.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193538 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'Lively, playful, provocative' Anita Desai 'A touching and engrossing story an assured debut' The Times 'A colourful and peripatetic view of politics in Pakistan an interesting and promising novel' Guardian 'Full of fun, longing and wit a debut of spirit and imagination, loaded with intelligent charm' Ali Smith, Scotsman

Guardian
'A colourful and peripatetic view of politics in Pakistan ... an interesting and promising novel'

Ali Smith, Scotsman
'Full of fun, longing and wit ... a debut of spirit and imagination, loaded with intelligent charm'

Customer Reviews

Kamila Shamsie is a fresh breath of air.
Way to go Miss Shamsie!!!! From one muslim woman from Pakistan to another, I thank you for not writing another tired old tome about the repressions and tribulations of muslim women in supposed male dominated society. I don't see many books where the voices of women authors inhabit male protagonists. The other way around happens way to often. Thank you for being different!

Interesting first novel. Some beautiful passages.
Compared to the glut of writers from India writing in English and being lauded at present, it is comparatively rarely that we get a writer from Pakistan and especially a female. Therefore, being a Pakistani, I was very interested in reading this book. I found that the writing in the book was very accomplished, with a nice knack for using interesting words. I found the book to have a slightly slow start but once I got into the book I was eager to find out what happens next. The descriptive passages in the book were probably the best and there was also a slightly acerbic humour underlying the whole story too. The political undertones were apparent. Overall it was a good read with some delightful passages but could have been made more readable if the characters had been developed further. Good. Recommended.:-)

A triumph for the freedom and grace of a Muslim childhood.
As a stroke of genius, Kamila Shamsie chooses as the protagonist of her debut novel a young boy and so avoids the domain of 'Muslim/ Asian womanhood' which is so emotive and fraught with stereotypes. Instead the reader in taken through a cool and moving journey which is ultimately a triumph for the freedom and grace that can be found in a Muslim childhood. Hasan is an 11 year old living in a Asian dictatorship (unnamed). His family are Westernized and highly educated, privilaged and very supportive. But his beloved uncle,Salmaan Mooto, an opposition leader, is under house arrest and subsequently tried for treason. Shamsie skillfully shows a child's perspective to a family crisis. Her portrait of the life of the upper classes in a Third World country is truthful and unselfconcious. For a writer so young, she is head and shoulders above many 'Asian woman' writers.