The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Mohsin Hamid
Some extraordinary fiction coming out of Pakistan provides insights into how young Pakistanis see their country and its future. Hamid, who earlier wrote Moth Smoke, a breathtaking profile of Lahore, looks at the clash of civilisations in Pakistan, as an investment banker gives up a good job in the US to return to Lahore. As he tells the story of his life to an American over the course of a long meal at Anarkali, the reader never knows what ulterior motives the two of them may harbour in making the evening even longer.

Broken Verses
Kamila Shamsie
Karachi-based Shamsie used this, her fourth novel, to understand the legacy of the Zia years, especially the culture wars that took such a toll on intellectual and creative life. Aasmaani Inqalab, at 31, is haunted by the death of her mother’s lover, a protester against political oppression. As she inhabits the opportunities that come to Karachi in the new century, with television channels changing the ways young Pakistanis depict themselves, she gets very disturbing clues to the double life led by the city’s social elite.