Nadeem Zaman – författare

East Pakistan. March 1971. Imtiaz Khan arrives at his uncle’s house in Dhaka for what he thinks will be a quick visit, only to be held back when the Pakistan Army makes a surprise attack on the University, murdering students and professors in cold blood. As the smell of sulphur and gunpowder become a part of their lives, young pro-independence fighters – the Mukti Bahini – find a haven in the home of Imtiaz’s uncle and aunt, Kamruzzaman and Aisha Chowdhury, and they are swept up in the tide of freedom that drives them all. On the other side, Fazal Shaukat – a young captain in the Pakistan Army with a family name to live up to – finds that the war he has signed up for isn’tgoing away anytime soon. There are things bigger than him or his family at stake, even as Pakistan finds itself torn asunder, Jinnah’s dream turning into a nightmare.Set against the backdrop of a monumental historical event, In the Time of the Others is about what itmeans to live during violent times. Fierce, searingly honest and revealing, this powerful debut explores how lives intersect during a time of war and upheaval, and how violence changes all that is human.

‘We inherit the lineage we’re all born into, with its history and its contradictions, with the very beautiful and the very ugly, neither of which we can have a hand in being able to change.’The family of Nisar Chowdhury moves from Dhaka to Chicago when he is just thirteen, and he grows up feeling estranged from both lands. Thirty years on, he returns to the city of his birth, only to find it changed beyond recognition.Rekindling old relationships and trying to get to grips with his father’s decision to sell off their remaining properties in the city, Nisar must navigate the labyrinth of a society that has moved on without him. The Inheritors is a vivid portrait of a city giddy with the march of change.

''Home is a going away, contained in loss, obscured by the brushstrokes of memory.''

Nisar Chowdhury returns to Dhaka, the city of his forefathers, from Chicago, feeling estranged to both. The city that awaits him, however, is not the one that lives in his memory. It is a place now replete with its own share of tales from new islands of splendour. Nisar must come to terms with his father''s decision to sell their patrimony - remnants of their link to this country. He meets people who have morphed along with the city, while unravelling the ways of Dhaka''s new world - wading through a haze of deceit, guile, friendship and love.

Weaving together a gripping sequence of events, this novel explores what it means to live in a world where power and privilege can afford to sustain relationships veneered by half-truths. This is Nadeem Zaman''s rich portrait of a city and its people in the clutch of stupefying change.