The Good Muslim

Shortlisted, DSC Prize For South Asian Literature, 2013
Longlisted, Man Asian Literary Award, 2011

One hot afternoon in a remote Bangladeshi village, a telegram brings life-changing news to Maya Haque’s door. Eight years before, a brutal war tore Maya’s country — and her family — apart. Now Maya realises it is time to return home at last. She arrives to find that everything has changed. Her old friends have been seduced by the lure of new money, her city streets have been renamed and the freedom she had once yearned for is a long-forgotten dream.

Worst of all, her beloved brother, Sohail, has become a stranger to her, abandoning his liberal beliefs to become a strict religious leader. As she attempts to come to grips with her brother’s radicalism, Maya will be forced to rethink what it means to be a good daughter, sister, friend and citizen — and a good Muslim.

Set in the dusty streets of Dhaka and the villages and river-islands of rural Bangladesh, at a time when the rise of religious fundamentalism was a whisper in the wind, The Good Muslim is an epic, unforgettable story of the challenges of peace in the long shadow of war. It is a novel that cleaves to the simple truth that shape all of our lives: that the bonds of family and love often strain to bear the weight of history.