Kartography - Tapa blanda

Karim and Raheen are irrevocably bound to one another and to Karachi, Pakistan. She is fiercely loyal and blinkered to the brave yet violent, corrupt and polluted city and resents Karim's need to name the streets and expand the privileged world they know. When he is forced to leave for London over the years a barrier of silence builds up until they are finally brought together and their relationship is finely poised between strained friendship and fated love.

What is the moment, that exact moment when everything changes and the friends you have been, become the lovers you might be? Soul mates from birth, Karim and Raheen finish one another's sentences, speak in anagrams and lie spine to spine as children. They are irrevocably bound to one another and to Karachi, Pakistan. It beats in their hearts - violent, polluted, corrupt, vibrant, brave and ultimately, home. However, Raheen is fiercely loyal and naively blinkered and she resents Karim's need to map their city, his need to name its streets and to expand the privileged world they know. When Karim is forced to leave for London their differences of opinion become a painful quarrel. As the years go by they let a barrier of silence build between them until, finally, they are brought together during a dry summer of strikes and ethnic violence and their relationship is poised between strained friendship and fated love. Impassioned and touching, "Kartography" is a love song to Karachi. In her extraordinary new novel, Kamila Shamsie shows us that whatever happens in the world, we must never forget the complicated war in our own hearts.