In the City by the Sea

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.