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Nadeem Aslam

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Maps for Lost Lovers Paperback – 2 Jun. 2005

by Nadeem Aslam (Author)

3.8 365 ratings

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In an unnamed town Jugnu and his lover Chanda have disappeared. Rumours abound in the close-knit Pakistani community, and then on a snow-covered January morning Chanda's brothers are arrested for murder. Telling the story of the next twelve months, Maps for Lost Lovers opens the heart of a family at the crossroads of culture, community, nationality and religion, and expresses their pain in a language that is arrestingly poetic.

'This is a deeply pastoral novel, tied to the seasons and resonating with birdsong . . . Like Aslam, I was heartbroken when the dense, dark tapestry was finished.' Independent on Sunday

'Despite the violence that lies at the heart of the novel, it is a celebration of love and life. Sights and sounds, smells and colours are not so much vivid backdrops for the narrative as structural, mood- and texture-enhancing parts of it . . . This is that rare sort of book that gives a voice to those voices that are seldom heard.' Observer

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Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Faber & Faber
Publication date

2 Jun. 2005
Dimensions

12.6 x 2.4 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0571221831
ISBN-13

978-0571221837
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Product description

Amazon Review

Maps for Lost Lovers is a stunningly brave and searingly brutal novel charting a year in the life of a working class community from the subcontinent--a group described by author Nadeem Aslam as "Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Sri Lankans living in a northern town". The older residents, who have left their homelands for the riches of England, have communally dubbed it Dasht-e-Tanhaii, which roughly translates as "the wilderness of solitude" or "the desert of loneliness". As the seasons change, from the first crystal flakes of snow that melt into "a monsoon raindrop", we slowly learn the fate of Jugnu and Chanda, a couple whose disappearance is rumoured to have been a result of their fatal decision to live in sin in a community where the phrase holds true meaning.

This uncompromisingly honest--and often uncomfortable to read--story is told through the eyes of Jugnu's brother's family who live next door. Shamas is director of the local Community Relations Council; a liberal, educated man he still mourns the passing of communism and yearns for passion in his later years. His wife Kaukub, daughter of a Pakistani cleric, is also in mourning for the passing of her devout Muslim upbringing and is forced to watch her three children turn "native". She tries increasingly desperate measures to turn them back to Islam. Pakistani-born Nadeem Aslam skilfully intertwines myths and legends with a harsh, modern reality. Tragic sub-plots of Romeo-and-Juliet proportions abound. And while some of the extended descriptive passages sit uneasily on the page and, towards the end, several rants against Islam forced through the mouths of characters become thinly-veiled lectures, nevertheless Maps for Lost Lovers is an epic work and an important milestone in British literature that deserves to be widely read by all multicultural societies seeking mutual tolerance and understanding. --Carey Green

Review

"'Despite the violence that lies at the heart of the novel, it is a celebration of love and life... This is that rare sort of book that gives a voice to those whose voices are seldom heard.' Observer; 'Nadeem Aslam is a genuinely exciting new voice, lively, confident, uninhibited and ambitious. This is one of the most impressive... novels of recent years' Salman Rushdie"

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber (2 Jun. 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571221831
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571221837
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.6 x 2.4 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,105,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 65,715 in Travel & Tourism (Books)
- 90,899 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- 94,295 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
3.8 365 ratings

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3.8 out of 5

365 global ratings

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Khan

The clash between old and new

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 January 2015

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This book is a real gem, written with such prose and lucidity, scrupulous detailing of the settings and a storyline hard to break from, Nadeem has really produced something unique here.

This book really captures the lives of the immigrants from Pakistan and how they have adjusted to 'English' life. Throughout the book there is this tension between the older generation who have difficulty letting go of their own parochial mentality and the younger generation, who were born in the UK, able to embrace this new culture and are more open minded. Majority of the older Pakistanis are Muslims and so they see that their young is being strayed away not only from their mother culture but religion as well, an attack on two fronts

I shan't say too much, but this book really resonates with me (being a Muslim of Pakistani ethnicity but born in England) and this book exemplifies how mainly the younger generation of Asian Muslims are caught between two cultures.

A real pleasure to read. This book is an eye opener, especially for western audiences

4 people found this helpful

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jjo

Brave and beautifully written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 June 2009

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I really enjoyed this well written book. I liked the descriptions of how 'emotionally lost' some of the characters are. Some characters really are lost in the place that they are in, not simply emotionally. I liked the varying narratives from the various character's perspectives. I thought this was a brave book for Aslam to write; discussing and highlighting cultural taboos and how some Asian people experience life in Britain. I related to the experiences of racism as a minority ethic person in Britain, as I'm black and live in Britain. Some of the scenarios written about happened to me also, almost word for word. I loved the poetic, lyrical nature of the writing. I think it was brave of him to write this book, as he covers issues people are scared to talk about or don't believe they exist in their culture/s or should not be discussed (child abuse, violence, murder, extra-marital sex, sex before marriage, inter-faith and interracial relationships, mixed-race children, divorce, women's role in the family, love, passion, our relationships with our children & parents, and so on). I'm NOT only talking about British, Islamic, Pakistani, Hindu, Sikh or "Asian" cultures. I mean ALL cultures.He underlines how people are people, no matter where we come from or the culture/s we belong to. He is willing to show a world of truth, with no intention of racism. If we talk about what is good and bad about our cultures and what is good and bad about ourselves/people, then maybe we can better understand our own and other's cultures, and ourselves. I don't think it is wrong to show the good and the bad aspects of people and culture. It's an honest, brave viewpoint.

3 people found this helpful

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Nina-Jo Rees

Over-written but interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 December 2015

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As other reviewers point out, the novel is oozing with lush poetic, metaphorical language and imagery which comes, the author suggests, from the traditions of Urdu poetry and Mughal art. This is very beautiful sometimes but gets repetitive. It is really too much of a good thing, rather like being force-fed turkish delight.

However, the novel has great strengths too, especially in the presentation of Kaukab, the devout mother of the dysfunctional Muslim family at the heart of the novel. She represents both deep maternal love for her family and children and also for her religion. This causes her problems because the children are living in a northern British town with the opportunities for education and sexual freedom that are anathema to her. Their lives are very different to her own life in Pakistan where she had little formal education after the age of 11 before coming to the UK after her own arranged marriage. Kaukab has strongly held, uncompromising religious beliefs and In trying to reconcile her faith and keep her children on the path of her religion, she hurts and alienates them and as adults, and they deeply resent her and refuse to see her.

The portrait of a Pakistani community in the Northern England is insightful, terrifying in its internal surveillance and shocking in its presentation of subjects like ‘honour killings’ and race relations.

4 people found this helpful

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Ms. Mary Smith

Absolutely wonderful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2011

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I first bought this in the hard back edition and lent it to someone who took so long to read it I had to buy a paperback copy because I wanted to read it again and have now read it three times. Maps for Lost Lovers is a beautifuly written book - the prose is lyrical, almost poetical - and yet Nadeem Aslam is writing uncompromisingly, even brutally, about difficult subjects.
The story, set in a nameless northern town which the residents from the sub-continent call the 'desert of loneliness', covers a year in the lives of the community since the disappearance of lovers Jugnu and Chanda.
There is a big cast of characters but the two main ones are the modern, 'liberated' Shamas and Kaukab his very conservative, religious wife. This complex, many layered novel provides a fascinating glimpse into what is often perceived as a closed community. It is a brave book, opening up a great many issues of relgion, race, bigotry, cultural differences and the difficulties for immigrants to be accepted and to accept.
Reviewed by Mary Smith author of No More Mulberries

3 people found this helpful

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IRFAN MIR

A Masterpiece

Reviewed in India on 3 March 2020

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It is written in lyrical, detailed, poetic prose. The novel delineates the problems that the muslims, radical muslims, have and to what extent can people go to preserve the memories, culture and values of their homeland. First fifty or hundred pages seem hard and the novel doesn't seem too enticing at the beginning but once you read these hundred odd pages, you are up for a reading experience you are never going to forget.

One person found this helpful

Ulf Wolf

Sheer Beauty

Reviewed in the United States on 16 November 2017

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Certain writers are mostly plot; think Stephen King, Tolkien, Pullman. Others are mostly about language, beauty of; think John Banville, Mark Helprin, James Joyce. Yet others seem to travel the wonderful path between the first two groups: gifted with amazing language and the depth and skill to write almost poetically, while also keeping a very interesting plot alive and burning (Banville once said he hardly even cared about plot—when it comes to plot he uses his alias Benjamin Black).

Nadeem Aslam, by my lights, delivers the best of both worlds. A language so rich and filling it sometimes resemble very thick, sweet, cream, traversing a story that on occasion (and unexpectedly) literally (pun intended) explodes into action.

Reading Aslam is like walking a dense jungle, you take care where you place your feet and you take in an atmosphere and surrounding that, at times, is almost too rich to comprehend. So, you re-read the sentence, or paragraph which now makes perfect sense: sings perfect sense.

This book moved me on many levels. For one, it raised the bar on how well something can be written while it, for two, also opened my eyes (and I mean A Clockwork Orange style opened my eyes) to the mind of the devout Muslim. This terrified me a little—until I realize that we encounter the same mind in the devout, fundamentalist Christian: only the words and names of prophets differ.

I must say that I am surprised that Aslam has not join Rushdie’s fate, he is that open (and, I assume, critical) about the often unreasonable and now and then bordering on insane dictates of the prophet. He also makes it very, very clear that women hardly even exist for the devout Muslim; she has very few, if any rights, beyond conceiving and giving birth (to, we pray, boys).

There is a gripping plot-thread running through this amazing narrative, that resolves in an amazing fashion toward the end of the novel. I wondered how Aslam was going to handle this, and he handles it admirably.

To beat a cliché to death: I could not recommend this book any higher.

2 people found this helpful

Nang-faa

Parfait

Reviewed in France on 5 September 2018

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Mon livre est arrivé bien avant la date indiquée, en parfait état, et sans suremballage.
Merci

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Xenia

Excellent book

Reviewed in Canada on 1 April 2017

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Great book! Fast shipping

K. Slater

An unusual book

Reviewed in the United States on 20 December 2012

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I loved her later book The Wasted Vigil. This one feels like a beginning. There are too many similes, though each individual simile is often beautiful or apt. The story gives you a real feeling for the first and 2nd generation Pakistani immigrant experience in Great Britain. She is a wonderful story teller, while teaching about modern Muslim practices, and difficulties and pleasures.

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Maps for Lost Lovers Paperback – 2 Jun. 2005

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