July Sun — Aamina Ahmad

The award-winning author of The Return of Faraz Ali paints a profound portrait of contemporary Pakistan.In these seven searing, atmospheric stories, Aamina Ahmad finds a world of pathos in the tightest circumstances, from the fugitive intimacies of villages where nothing escapes notice to the crevices where city-dwellers seek refuge from urban striving and indifference. A man witnesses the last tender moment between two lovers before fate intervenes. A woman takes matters into her own hands in the face of an unexpected pregnancy. A young girl’s perception of her father is forever altered when she follows him to a secret meeting. A police officer must choose between the laws of God and man. Capturing the plight of ordinary people caught between love and duty, action and indecision, freedom and the constraints of tradition, July Sun more than sustains the promise of Ahmad’s exceptionally sure-footed debut.