WHO KNOWS THE BOUNDS OF DESIRE
PKR: 2,800/- 1,680/-
Author: OSAMA SIDDIQUE
Binding: hardback
Pages: 568
ISBN: 978-969-662-642-8
Categories: NOVEL ENGLISH
Publisher: BOOK CORNER
A once-resplendent city, the jewel of the realm, now an empire of carbon—overtaken by avarice and apathy. Its grand houses dilapidated, its ancient trees shorn, its governance degraded and its populace in decline. Now, it is arduous to pursue justice, knowledge and kindness, or even take a breath of fragrant air.
But all isn’t lost. As twilight descends, small flickers of light sustain, fighting away the growing darkness and keeping hope alive.
Khalid, the stargazer, in love with the idea of love—never quite finding it.
Tayyaba Khala with her meditations on science and religion, and her evocative verse.
Sitara Bano, the ‘Atomic Moth’ turned formidable lawyer.
Chotay Shah, and his wondrous mechanical spiders.
The do-gooder duo of Mian Imran Hameed and Shareef sahib.
The sun may be setting here, but who is to say that these small sparks of light may not light up the wildernesses of hearts?
Dizzying in ambition and elegiac in its prose, Who Knows the Bounds of Desire links the present with what has passed, carrying forth themes and tropes from classical Urdu, Persian, Punjabi, Arabic and Hindi grand epics, and offers verses from the finest metaphysical Urdu poetry.
The Novelists can’t change the world, but they do keep accounts of our gains and our losses. This, too, is a stock-keeping of our times.
۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔
A well-ventilated novel, where the winds blow in from every quarter, representing a city mired in the frantic present and an insoluble past, with a distracted opulence, half-salvaged and half-abandoned. The narrative dives into a mirror-like depth, as if in a state of dereliction, showing old houses, back alleys, civic modernity, gardens and graveyards. Images and voices pile up and intermingle, reduced sometimes to shadows and whispers, fading in and out, as if part of an incomprehensible play. Narratives implode as they invariably do when handled by a prescient author. Osama Siddique is an expert handler, playing with a remote, as characters and vistas appear and vanish. Here is a novel, taking an unruffled look at the troubled and the troublesome and the ridiculous, and completely at home with what it depicts. A very likable spell-binder.
— M. SALIM-UR-RAHMAN
۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔
OSAMA SIDDIQUE grew up in Lahore, and studied at Government College and LUMS. He then read law as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and obtained master’s and doctorate degrees from Harvard Law School, where he has also taught as a visiting professor. He has worked as a corporate lawyer in New York, as an advocate of appellate courts, a legal scholar, university teacher and reform consultant in Pakistan, and as a law and policy instructor in many other countries. He is the author of two books and multiple other publications in the legal field, and has also published two previous novels in English and Urdu to critical and popular acclaim—Snuffing Out the Moon and Ghuroob e Shehr Ka Waqt. He lives in Lahore.
RELATED BOOKS
Majmua Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (Afsany, Novel, Daramy, Tarajim)
Author: Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
PKR: 3,000/- 1,500/-