Hasan is 11 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 oppressive 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.
Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Pakistan. She is the author of five
novels: In the City by the Sea, Kartography (both shortlisted for
the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Salt and Saffron, Broken Verses, and
Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the 2009 Orange Prize). In 1999 she
received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature and in 2004 the
Patras Bokhari Award--both awarded by the Pakistan Academy of Letters.
Kamila Shamsie lives in London.
