I am not much into reading Fiction but this book caught my attention and so I picked it up. The story was so captivating that I finished the book over this weekend easily. It is surprising that “Invitation” is the first novel for the author Shehryar Fazli and as the back cover reads he has kicked it off in high style.
The story is about Shahbaz, who is a young Pakistani from Paris who returns to his home city in Karachi, West Pakistan, to settle a family property dispute. He arrives in a 1970s Karachi preparing for democracy, seething with political machination, corruption and class tensions – and, above all, facing the prospect of a changing power balance between the dominant West Pakistani establishment and the Bengalis of East Pakistan. The property dispute pits Shahbaz against his father’s older sister, Mona Phuppi, a strong-willed woman with deep knowledge of Karachi and, unlike Shahbaz, certain of her place in it. More than defeating his aunt, Shahbaz wants to reclaim a place in a Karachi aristocracy he was once entitled to.
As an Indian, I am used to the world around me which singularizes everything about Pakistan to Politics (Conflict & Terrorism). Reading this book gave me a small window to the true Pakistan, its people & their struggles. Overall, the novel was informative and enjoyable as well.
