A Season for Martyrs: A Novel
By Bina Shah
3.5/5
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About this ebook
October, 2007. Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returns home after eight years of exile to seek political office once more. Assigned to cover her controversial arrival is TV journalist Ali Sikandar, the estranged son of a wealthy landowner from the interior region of Sindh. While her presence ignites fierce protests and assassination attempts, Ali finds himself irrevocably drawn to the pro-democracy People’s Resistance Movement, a secret that sweeps him into the many contradictions of a country still struggling to embrace modernity. As Shah weaves together the centuries-old history of Ali’s feudal family and its connection to the Bhuttos, she brilliantly reveals a story at the crossroads of the personal and the political, a chronicle of one man’s desire to overcome extremity to find love, forgiveness, and even identity itself.
Bina Shah
Bina Shah is a regular contributor to the International New York Times and is a frequent guest on the BBC. She has contributed essays to Granta, The Independent, and The Guardian. She holds degrees from Wellesley College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is an alumna of the University of Iowa’s International Writers Workshop. Her novel Slum Child was a bestseller in Italy, and she has been published in English, Spanish, German and Italian. She lives in Karachi.
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Reviews for A Season for Martyrs
12 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A beautiful novel of Pakistani history, weaving together through the generations the feudal Pir background of reporter Ali Sikander and the history of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The novel moves between 2007, when Bhutto returns from exile in Dubai, and historical vignettes illustrating the history of the two families. I knew little about Pakistan before reading this novel and found it fascinating. The novel is also an excellent coming-of-age story for Ali. Watching him move from a self-centered, frivolous young man into a politically aware person willing to heal his parental relationships was gratifying.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Engaging enough but too reverential at times. Overall a good read.