Moth Smoke

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘You know you re in trouble when you can t meet a woman s eye, particularly if the woman happens to be your best friend s wife...’ In Lahore, Daru Shezad is a junior banker with a hashish habit. When his old friend Ozi moves back to Pakistan, Daru wants to be happy for him. Ozi has everything: a beautiful wife and child, an expensive foreign education ? and a corrupt father who bankrolls his lavish lifestyle. As jealousy sets in, Daru s life slowly unravels. He loses his job. Starts lacing his joints with heroin. Becomes involved with a criminally-minded rickshaw driver. And falls in love with Ozi s lonely wife. But how low can Daru sink? Is he guilty of the crime he finds himself on trial for?

‘Not often does one find a first novel that has the power of imagination and skill to orchestrate personal and public themes of these consequences and achieve a chord that reverberates in one’s mind … One of the two or three best novels I have read this year’ ? Nadine Gordimer ‘An irresistibly engaging adventure and a searching portrait of contemporary young people in Pakistan’? Joyce Carol Oates ‘A vivid portrait of contemporary young Pakistani life, where frustration and insecurity feed not only the snobbery, decadence and aspirations of the rich, but also the resentment of the poor’ ? The Times ‘Stunning . . .’ ? Los Angeles Times ‘Beautiful prose and uncomfortably acute insights’ ? Guardian ‘Brisk, absorbing, inventive. Hamid steers us from start to finish with assurance and care’ ? The New York Times Book Review