The Collaborator

'With flashes of brilliance, tenderness and fury, Mirza Waheed's The Collaborator does what fiction should. It makes you listen' Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things 
 
By the waters running through the valleys of Kashmir, teenage boys come to play cricket, talk about girls, and just be. But a few years later, when they are young men and violence grips the region, they are gone. 
 
Only the son of the local headman has stayed. He knows his friends have slipped over the border to Pakistan, and turned militant to bear arms against the Indian army. He would like to join them - but he cannot. 
 
Instead, put in an impossible position by an Indian army Captain, he must cross into the shadowland between the opposing sides, a ghost walking among the dead. His fate, like that of his lost brothers, unknown . . . 
 
'Waheed's prose burns with the fever of anger and despair; the scenes in the valley are exceptional, conveying, a hallucinatory living nightmare that has become an everyday reality for Kashmiris' Metro 
 
'Waheed builds an atmosphere of menace and despair . . . his tale possesses a disturbing power that is both lingering and profound' Independent on Sunday 
 
'Compelling . . . An important and poetic testimony to an all-too-easily forgotten war' Daily Mail 
 
Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in Kashmir. His debut novel The Collaborator was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Shakti Bhat Prize, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. It was also book of the year for the Telegraph, New Statesman, Financial Times, Business Standard and Telegraph India. Waheed has written for the BBC, the Guardian, Granta, Al Jazeera English and The New York Times. He lives in London.

With flashes of brilliance, tenderness and fury, The Collaborator does what fiction should. It makes you listen

Devastating . . . haunting . . . gripping in its narrative drama

Compelling . . . An important and poetic testimony to an all-too-easily forgotten war

Waheed builds an atmosphere of menace and despair . . . his tale possesses a disturbing power that is both lingering and profound

Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in Srinagar, Kashmir. He moved to Delhi when he was eighteen to study English Literature at the University of Delhi and worked as a journalist in the city for four years. He came to London in 2001 to join the BBC's Urdu Service, where he now works as an editor. 
 
Waheed attended the Arvon Foundation in 2007. The Collaborator is his first novel.

By the waters running through the valleys of Kashmir, teenage boys come to play cricket, talk about girls, and just be. But a few years later, when they are young men and violence grips the region, they are gone. 
 
Only the son of the local headman has stayed. He knows his friends have slipped over the border to Pakistan, and turned militant to bear arms against the Indian army. He would like to join them - but he cannot. 
 
Instead, put in an impossible position by an Indian army Captain, he must cross into the shadowland between the opposing sides, a ghost walking among the dead. His fate, like that of his lost brothers, unknown . . .

Mirza Waheed

A haunting illustration of how, at the end of last century, normal life became impossible for many of those who call Kashmir home . . . Waheed's talent lies in the vivid, convincing detail he brings to descriptions of everyday lives. The careful meshing of domestic intimacy with political events is done deftly, with integrity. Like his great-grandfather's gold painting, Waheed's work will undoubtedly endure

Waheed writes about war with a devastating and unflinching calm, with the melancholy wisdom of someone attuned to but never hardened by its horrors . . . He has a formidable insight into his large cast of characters, from the elegant grief-stricken principal of the girls' school taken over by Indian officers to the spoilt boy-turned-insurgent who betrays his own father

A harrowing tale of love in a time of conflict and change . . . The language in this book is lyrical, indeed at times it seems to be poetry masquerading as prose. The Book of Gold Leaves is the sort of book one can read and re-read - and then read again

A dazzling and heart-breaking story set in war-torn Kashmir - essential reading

Waheed writes about Kashmir with compassion, not anger . . . [and] one finds a strange and terrible beauty. There are no heroes or villains in this exquisite book, just a palpable grief for what might have been

A beautifully told and finely choreographed story of love, art and conflict in Kashmir

Waheed's new novel returns to 1990s Kashmir. If The Collaborator was journalistic in its zeal to explain Kashmir . . . [here] what keeps you reading is the story. He relies on family dynamics to drive the action . . . it's ultimately how the novel accounts for the moral toll of war

Poetic and political with a warm sensuousness, The Book of Gold Leaves is the year's best book. As beautifully written as the paintings on papier mache that one of its central characters executes, this fine examination of the Kashmiri condition through a Sunni-Shia love story leaves the reader both wretched and transformed, and brings us to a greater understanding of the fragility of love in a harsh climate

Like the gold leaves of the book's title, Waheed's prose is like pixie dust, sprinkled all over a city of heartbreak and despair. It is a city that has found in Waheed, the great-grandson of a much-admired papier-mache artist, its truest troubadour. Read him and weep.

A romance set against the backdrop of unrest in the Kashmiri valley in the 1990s, Waheed's second novel explores the reasons behind young men taking to bloodshed

In an ancient house in the city of Srinagar, Faiz paints exquisite papier-mâché pencil boxes for tourists. Evening is beginning to slip into night when he sets off for the shrine. He looks up to see the girl with the long black hair. 
 
Roohi has been waiting for him. She wants a love story. And so it begins. 
 
An age-old tale of love and conflict, within families, between worlds, The Book of Gold Leaves is a heartbreaking tale of what might have been, what could have been, if only.

Mirza Waheed

Praise for The Book Of Gold Leaves

A haunting illustration of how, at the end of last century, normal life became impossible for many of those who call Kashmir home . . . Waheed's talent lies in the vivid, convincing detail he brings to des ...

Waheed writes about war with a devastating and unflinching calm, with the melancholy wisdom of someone attuned to but never hardened by its horrors . . . He has a formidable insight into his ...

A harrowing tale of love in a time of conflict and change . . . The language in this book is lyrical, indeed at times it seems to be poetry masquerading as prose. The Book of Gold Leaves is the sort ...

A haunting illustration of how, at the end of last century, normal life became impossible for many of those who call Kashmir home . . . Waheed's talent lies in the vivid, convincing detail he brings to des ...

Waheed writes about war with a devastating and unflinching calm, with the melancholy wisdom of someone attuned to but never hardened by its horrors . . . He has a formidable insight into his ...

A harrowing tale of love in a time of conflict and change . . . The language in this book is lyrical, indeed at times it seems to be poetry masquerading as prose. The Book of Gold Leaves is the sort ...

A haunting illustration of how, at the end of last century, normal life became impossible for many of those who call Kashmir home . . . Waheed's talent lies in the vivid, convincing detail he brings to des ...

Waheed writes about war with a devastating and unflinching calm, with the melancholy wisdom of someone attuned to but never hardened by its horrors . . . He has a formidable insight into his ...

A harrowing tale of love in a time of conflict and change . . . The language in this book is lyrical, indeed at times it seems to be poetry masquerading as prose. The Book of Gold Leaves is the sort ...

Books by Mirza Waheed

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