Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Kartography: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Kartography: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Kartography: A Novel
    Ebook387 pages6 hours

    Kartography: A Novel

    By Kamila Shamsie

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A “gorgeous novel” of two upper-class Pakistani families and the complicated love that develops between their children, by the author of Home Fire (Los Angeles Times).

    Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to one another’s partners, until they rematched in what they call “the fiancée swap.” But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents’ exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family’s turbulent history, but also a country’s—and now a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love.
     
    A love story with a family mystery at its heart, from an author named as one of the Orange Prize’s “21 Writers for the 21st Century,” Kartography transports readers to a world not often seen in fiction: vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan.
     
    “[Shamsie] has been described as a young Anita Desai, and her third book, about childhood, love, life and high society in Karachi during the turbulent 1990s, is worth all the prepublication fuss.” —Harper’s Bazaar
     
    “[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her high-flying intelligence.” —San Francisco Chronicle
     
    “E. M. Forster’s famous plea—‘only connect’—reverberates passionately throughout this forceful tale of childhood, love and the power of story-telling.” —The Independent (UK)
     
    “Deftly woven, provocative . . . Shamsie’s blistering humor and ear for dialogue scorches through [a] whirl of whiskey and witticisms.” —The Observer (UK)
     
    “A shimmering, quick-witted lament and love story . . . Rich in emotional coloratura and wordplay.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
     
    “Its artful uncovering of how people hide from themselves and one another . . . echoes Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” —Kirkus Reviews
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 7, 2004
    ISBN9780547541129
    Unavailable
    Kartography: A Novel
    Author

    Kamila Shamsie

    Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels including Home Fire which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017, shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award, the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards 2018, and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and won the London Hellenic Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018. Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelists in 2013; she was also awarded a South Bank Arts Award in 2018. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London.

    Read more from Kamila Shamsie

    Related to Kartography

    Related ebooks

    Sagas For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      California Dreaming

      Mar 31, 2020

      Rishi Reddi’s first novel, Passage West, is an audacious piece of work. On the one hand, the author situates her story in a California most of us won’t recognize: the Imperial Valley early in the previous century, when South Asians worked the irrigat

      2 min read

    • Article

      What Grief Tastes Like

      Apr 21, 2021

      What Grief Tastes Like
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Melissa Febos

      Dec 20, 2021

      It has been, in some ways, one of the most bountiful years of my life, and in others, the absolute loneliest. My lonelinesses have always been treated best by books. The post A Year in Reading: Melissa Febos appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      Matt Cain

      Jun 3, 2021

      ‘The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle is a novel in the “uplit” genre about a shy, lonely and secretly gay postman, who’s served notice of compulsory retirement and is prompted to delve back into his past to confront an unresolved trauma and track dow

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Bryan Washington

      Dec 3, 2018

      1. This year, I read a lot on my phone. That’s a habit I’ve picked up from working gigs where you stand a bunch (watching kids on a swingset, watching adult children park their cars). Some folks don’t vibe with that, but those folks don’t pay my bill

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Manguso, Blake, Lavery, and More

      Feb 8, 2022

      Sarah Blake's latest post-apocalyptic novel, Mellors' satirical debut about a couple's impulsive marriage, and Lavery's speculative memoir are new this week The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Manguso, Blake, Lavery, and More appeared first on

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Castillo, Hokeah, Murphy, and More

      Jul 26, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Elaine Castillo, Oscar Hokeah, Dwyer Murphy, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Milli

      4 min read

    • Article

      Femi Kayode

      Feb 4, 2021

      Femi Kayode
      6 min read

    • Article

      Clarence Page: The Age-old Trick Of ‘Passing’: Fiction Writer The Latest To Be Disgraced By Lies About Heritage

      Mar 20, 2023

      I have never known a man who faked his own death, but I have known a man who faked his own life, then sadly failed to live long enough for us to talk about it. I’m talking about the late Hache Carrillo, a rising, award-winning literary talent whose r

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Ghost Goes East

      Mar 23, 2021

      The Ghost Goes East
      5 min read

    • Article

      I Do So, Like Durian

      Jun 10, 2021

      The 504-streetcar grated against the curve of the tracks as it entered the station. It pulled to a stop directly in front of Holly. The doors opened with such a clunk that she stepped back, treading on the toes of the person behind her. She was block

      11 min read

    • Article

      ‘I’m Not Scared Of War Any More’: Death And The Penguin Author Andrey Kurkov On Life In Kyiv

      Apr 5, 2022

      Even newly arrived in London, 1,300 miles away from Ukraine, Andrey Kurkov feels as if he’s in a war zone. His phone – its settings still monitoring the location west of Kyiv where he is based – buzzes constantly with warnings of air raids. Ukrainian

      7 min read

    Reviews for Kartography

    4/5

    70 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Set in Karachi, Pakistan, Raheen and Karim have known each other from infancy. Their parents are best friends. The narrative follows their evolving relationship in the 1980s and 1990s, mixed with flashbacks to their parents’ lives before and immediately after marrying in 1971, the year East Pakistan parted from West Pakistan and became Bangladesh. As they get older, Karim becomes interested in understanding the ethnic conflicts, violence, and corruption in Karachi, while Raheen retreats from it. These two have been largely shielded from the adverse impacts by their parents’ affluent status. It is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness.

      Shamsie’s writing is elegant. Karachi is integral to the narrative, becoming a character in itself. A family secret propels the narrative – each main character’s mother was previously engaged to the other’s father. It is what I will call a “literary mystery,” but is character driven. The primary themes relate to conflicting emotions about home and how lives are changed by historic events. It is a good example of how fiction can inform what a historical period was like in the lives of people who lived through it, bringing it to a personal level that is easy to relate to, no matter where we live.
    • 3/5
      Kartography early set up a fine plot promise, but did not deliver.First, it is at least a third too long and second, the premise hangs on main characterssimply not talking to each other. This quickly becomes tedious...as does Ra's "idiot" name calling and juvenile put-downs.The draw of Karim's mapmaking is the most intriguing developmentwhile the history and interweavings of Pakistan, East Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Bengalis was enlightening.What is the point, aside from suicide wishes, for staying in Karachi when Raheem, Zia,Sonia, Karim, and their families have other choices...aren't the heat, the murdersand shootings, the filth and constant danger enough of a deterrent?This scenario reminds me of Malala's Father and his refusal to leave.
    • 5/5
      Kartography is, without a doubt, my favorite contemporary book. The author, Kamila Shamsie, grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, in the 1970s and 1980s, and this is where and when her story is set. The first time I read the book I was so blown away by the beautiful language and compelling story that it barely registered when I came upon reference to Pakistani history that I didn’t understand. All I wanted to do was devour the story in the book, and Ms. Shamsie gave me all the information I needed to fall in love with Kartography without knowing the history of Pakistan.The second time I read the book, I couldn’t let myself off so easily. I was curious about the war the characters kept referring to, and why there was tension between the Punjabi and Bengali characters. I picked up on some new subtleties, and was not so quick to skim over the unfamiliar references. I looked up the words I didn’t know, such as muhajir (immigrant) and Ami (Mother). But still I must admit that I didn’t probe too deeply into the history of the story or the region.This time, however, in my third reading of this excellent novel, I can’t seem to get enough of the history of these characters that I have come to know as well as I know my own children. My atlas is permanently open on my living room floor as I look up cities and roads that figure in the story. I have Wikipedia’s explanation of the Bangladesh Liberation War bookmarked in my internet browser, as well as the history of the British colonization of India. And I must admit, I now appreciate the book on a whole new level. My understanding of the main characters has much more depth, and even peripheral characters have taken on an importance I would never have seen in my first or second readings. My historical research increases not only my appreciation of the book itself, but also my appreciation of the author’s storytelling abilities. As much as I loved the book before, I understood only a fraction of the thought and subtlety that must have gone into the creation of Kartography.This book is a must-read, and a must-have in your library.
    • 2/5
      I was eager to read about a city/country/era I knew very little about, however I don't feel like I learned very much. Instead this book confused me with so many similar names, unrealistic friendships, and an ending I just didn't understand.