The Blind Man`s Garden ~ Nadeem Aslam

The Blind Man's Garden ~ Nadeem Aslam

Medium soft cover 
464 pages, good condition 

Jeo and Mikal are foster brothers from a small town in Pakistan. Though they were inseparable as children, their adult lives have diverged: Jeo is a dedicated medical student, married a year; Mikal has been a vagabond since he was fifteen, in love with a woman he can't have. But when Jeo decides to sneak across the border into Afghanistan, not to fight with the Taliban against the Americans, rather to help care for wounded civilians. Mikal determines to go with him, to protect him.

Yet Jeo's and Mikal's good intentions cannot keep them out of harm's way. As the narrative takes us from the wilds of Afghanistan to the heart of the family left behind their blind father, haunted by the death of his wife and by the mistakes he may have made in the name of Islam and nationhood; Mikals beloved brother and sister-in-law; Jeos wife, whose increasing resolve helps keep the household running, and her superstitious mother, we see all of these lives upended by the turmoil of war.

In language as lyrical as it is piercing, in scenes at once beautiful and harrowing, The Blind Mans Garden unflinchingly describes a crucially contemporary yet timeless world in which the line between enemy and ally is indistinct, and where the desire to return home burns brightest of all.