Books from Pakistan
30 popular pakistani books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Asia Challenge" were written by authors from Pakistan.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
1.
A Season for Martyrs by Bina Shah EN
Description:
The U.S. literary debut of an up-and-coming Pakistani novelist and journalist. Ali Sikandar is assigned to cover the arrival of Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader who has returned home to Karachi after eight years of exile to take part in the presidential race. Already eager to leave for college in the U.S. and marry his forbidden Hindu girlfriend, Ali loses a friend in a horrific explosion and finds himself swept up in events larger than his individual struggle for identity and love when he joins the People’s Resistance Movement, a group that opposes President Musharraf. Amidst deadly terr... continue
2.
A Woman Like Her : The Short Life of Qandeel Baloch by Sanam Maher EN
Description:
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020'The powerful story of a woman who was ahead of her time' Mishal Husain, presenter at BBC News'Terrific and necessary' Sonia Faleiro'This book is brilliant and terrifying' Meena Kandasamy_________________________ A beautiful woman in winged eyeliner and a low-cut top lies on a bed urging her favourite cricketer to win the next match. In another post, she pouts at the camera from a hot tub. She posts a selfie with a cleric, wearing his cap at a jaunty angle. Her posts are viewed millions of times and the comments beneath them a... continue
3.
An Abundance of Wild Roses by Feryal Ali-Gauhar EN
Description:
In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first snowball in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems – including the injured stranger – and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love letter and incurs her father’s wrath. A lame boy foretells disaster, but nobody is listening. Trapped in terrible danger, a wolf-dog is battling ice and death to save a soldier’s life. Beaten by her addict husband for bearing him only daughters, a woman is pregnant again – but can this child save her? As the elements turn on ... continue
4.
Blasphemy : A Novel by Tehmina Durrani EN
Description:
Set In South Pakistan, This Controversial Novel Is A Searing Study Of Evil. It Is The Tragic And Shocking Story Of The Beautiful Heer, Brutalized And Corrupted By Pir Sain, The So-Called Man Of God Whom She Is Married To At The Age Of Fifteen.
5.
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie EN
Description:
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An Orange Prize Finalist Nagasaki, August 9, 1945. Hiroko Tanaka watches her lover from the veranda as he leaves. Sunlight streams across Urakami Valley, and then the world goes white. In the devastating aftermath of the atomic bomb, Hiroko leaves Japan in search of new beginnings. From Delhi, amid India's cry for independence from British colonial rule, to New York City in the immediate wake of 9/11, to the novel's astonishing climax in Afghanistan, a violent history casts its shadow the entire world over. Sweeping in its scope and mesmerizing in its ev... continue
6.
Cracking India : A Novel by Bapsi Sidhwa EN
Description:
During the 1947 Partition of India, young Lenny Sethi suffers from polio and spends her days with Ayah, her beautiful nanny, who exposes her to the differences among the Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, but when Ayah is kidnapped, Lenny's world erupts into religious, ethnic, and radical violence. Reprint.
7.
Defying Jihad : The Dramatic True Story of a Woman Who Volunteered to Kill Infidels - and Then Faced Death for Becoming One by Esther Ahmad EN
Description:
If you truly love Allah, you will die for him. Your death will mean much reward for you and your family in heaven. Only death will prove your love. It was the final test. A chance to win not only the love of Allah, but the love of her father--something she had never been able to earn. Esther took a deep breath and raised her hand in the air. At the age of eighteen, she had just volunteered to become a suicide bomber. Defying Jihad is the true story of a girl growing up under radical Islamic rule, trained to believe her ultimate purpose was to serve Allah by dying as a jihadist. But two nights ... continue
8.
Description:
FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE & WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE “It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful.” —Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review “Moving, audacious, and indelibly human.” —Entertainment Weekly, “A” rating The New York Times bestselling novel: an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands, from the author of T... continue
9.
Grieving for Pigeons: Twelve Stories of Lahore by Zubair Ahmad EN
Description:
In this poignant and meditative collection of short stories, Zubair Ahmad captures the lives and experiences of the people of the Punjab, a region divided between India and Pakistan. In an intimate narrative style, Ahmad writes a world that hovers between memory and imagination, home and abroad. The narrator follows the pull of his subconscious, shifting between past and present, recalling different eras of Lahore’s neighbourhoods and the communities that define them. These stories evoke the complex realities of post-colonial Pakistani Punjab. The contradictions of this region’s history reverb... continue
10.
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie EN
Description:
"Ingenious... Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century." --The New York Times WINNER OF THE 2018 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she's accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But s... continue