The Blind Man's Garden

Nadeem Aslam

Feb 2013 · Random House India

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‘Love is not consolation, it is light’ From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers and The Wasted Vigil comes a novel set in the months after 9/11, when Western armies invaded Afghanistan—a story of love, hope and grief, of uncorrupted faith and of what it means to be alive. Jeo and his foster-brother Mikal leave their home in Pakistan to help care for wounded Afghans. Within hours of entering the wide-horizoned Afghan landscape, Mikal and Jeo are separated and, emerging from the carnage, Mikal begins his search for Jeo. But his deepest wish is to return home—to the young woman he loves and who loves him, Jeo’s wife. The Blind Man’s Garden maps a place both phantasmally beautiful and chilling. Taking us on a journey from Al Qaeda’s hideouts in Waziristan and American-built military prisons to a family left behind—Mikal’s and Jeo’s blind, regretful father, Jeo’s resolute wife and her superstitious mother—it unflinchingly examines war and brotherhood, devastation, separation and remorse, while celebrating the redemptive power of nature, art and literature.

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Nadeem Aslam is the author of three previous novels, Season of the Rainbirds (1993), Maps for Lost Lovers (2004)—longlisted for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize, and awarded the Kiriyama Prize and the Encore Award—and, most recently, The Wasted Vigil (2008), described by A. S. Byatt as ‘unforgettable... tragic and beautifully written’. Born in Pakistan, he now lives in England. In 2012 he was a made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.