The Blind Man's Garden

Soon after 9/11, foster brothers Mikal and Jeo secretly enter Afghanistan to help care for wounded people - but they are from Pakistan, and not everyone is convinced by their good intentions.

Theirs is not the only narrative in The Blind Man's Garden. This title refers to Mikal and Jeo's father, Rohan, who is about to lose his sight, and is preparing himself by storing up visual memories of the beautiful gardens around the old school where he lives. The novel explores the lives of many ordinary people - all victims of a war, all dealing with the perils of living with terrorism and its attendant torture, disappearances, bombings and beheadings.

The Blind Man's Garden is Nadeem Aslam's fourth novel, and perhaps his most ambitious. This is not a book for an inattentive reader: the varied cast of characters requires concentration, but the reward for the alert reader is great. Aslam is a master of contrasts: East and West, power and control, violence and passion, the horror of torture and the beauty of nature.