Season of the Rainbirds

From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, Aslam’s exquisite first novel, the powerful story of a secluded Pakistani village after the murder of its corrupt and prominent judge.
 
Judge Anwar’s murder sets the people of the village on edge. Their anxieties are compounded when a sack of letters, thought lost in a train crash nineteen years ago, suddenly reappears under mysterious circumstances. What secrets will these letters bring to light? Could the letters shed any light on Judge Anwar’s murder? As Aslam traces the murder investigation over the next eleven days, he explores the impact that these two events have on the town’s inhabitants—from Judge Anwar’s surviving family to the journalist reporting on the delivery of the mail packet. With masterful attention to detail and beautiful scenes that set the rhythms of daily life in Pakistan, Aslam creates a lush and timeless world—played out against an ominous backdrop of religious tensions, assassinations, changing regimes, and faraway civil wars.

Nadeem Aslam is the author of three highly acclaimed novels: Season of the Rainbirds, which won a Betty Trask Award; Maps for Lost Lovers, which was a New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Kiriyama Prize, shortlisted for the IMPAC prize, and longlisted for the Booker Prize; and, most recently, The Wasted Vigil. He is also the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship. Born in Pakistan, he lives in England.