Published: June 2010

Readers who selected this book also read Nadeem Aslam's The Wasted Vigil.

Chanda and Jugnu love each other dearly but are unable to marry until Chanda’s husband can be persuaded to divorce her. Instead they set up house together becoming the object of gossip and judgement for the Muslim community of which they are a part. Their failure to return from a trip to Pakistan eventually results in the arrest of Chanda’s brothers for the couple’s murder. Jugnu’s brother Shamas, the respected director of the local Community Relations Council, and his devout wife Kaukab find their most cherished beliefs challenged as they try to cope with their distress and the uncertainty which ripples throughout both their lives and the tightly-knit community in which they live. In glittering prose studded with gorgeous imagery, Maps for Lost Lovers traces the year following the Jugnu and Chanda’s disappearance illuminating a world which is known to many of us only through the headlines of the newspapers we read.

--------------

Praise for the book:

"Rich in detail, languid in cadence and iridescent with remarkable images... Aslam takes us by the hand and, scattering his trail of bewitching images, leads us into his story."

_{Soumya Battacharya, The Observer}

"In this book, filled with stories of cruelty, injustice, bigotry and ignorance, love never steps out of the picture. It gleams on the edges of evn the deepest wounds... A remarkable achievement."

_{Kamila Shamsie, Guardian}

Visit the Reader's Guide for reviews in The New York Times, The Guardian, and San Francisco Chronicle.