"Spellbinding . . . . Anam has written a story about powerful events.
But it is her descriptions of the small, unheralded moments . . . that
truly touch the heart." --San Francisco Chronicle
Tahmima Anam's deeply moving debut novel about a mother's
all-consuming love for her two children, set against the backdrop of war
and terror, has led critics to comparisons with The English Patient
and A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Rehana Haque, a young widow transplanted to the city of Dhaka in East
Pakistan, is fiercely devoted to her adolescent children, Maya and
Sohail. Both become fervent nationalists in the violent political
turmoil which, in 1971, transforms a brutal Pakistani civil war into a
fight to the death for Bangladeshi independence. Fair-minded and
intensely protective of her family, but not at all political, Rehana is
sucked into the conflict in spite of herself.
A story of passion and revolution, of family, friendship and unexpected
heroism, A Golden Age depicts the chaos of an era and the choices
everyone--from student protesters to the country's leaders, and rickshaw
wallahs to the army's soldiers--must make. Rehana herself will face a
cruel dilemma; the choice she makes is at once heartbreaking and true to
the character we have come to love and respect.
