Since 1989, when the separatist movement exploded in Kashmir, more than 70,000 people have been killed in the battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Born and raised in the war-torn region, Basharat Peer brings this little-known part of the world to life in haunting, vivid detail..Peer reveals stories from his youth as well as gut-wrenching accounts of the many Kashmiris he met years later, as a reporter. He chronicles a young man’s initiation into a Pakistani training camp...

What happens when a democratically elected leader evolves into an authoritarian ruler, limiting press freedom, civil liberties, and religious and ethnic tolerance?India and Turkey are two of the world’s biggest democracies—multi-ethnic nations that rose from their imperial past to be founded on the values of modernity. They have fair elections, open markets, and freedom of religion.Yet this is an account of how the charismatic strongmen Narendra Modi, in In...

Winner of the Crossword Prize for non-fiction, ‘“Curfewed Night’” is a passionate and important book – a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen to ignore.' Salman RushdieBasharat Peer was a teenager when the separatist movement exploded in Kashmir in 1989. Over the following years countless young men, fuelled by feelings of injustice, crossed over the Line of Control to train in Pakistani army camps. Peer was sent off to boarding school in Aligarh to keep o...

A 2015 Amelia Bloomer List Selection"You will be a son, my daughter." With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy.In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh: literally "girls dressed as boys." This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and work-and in some cases, it saves them from the di...

The New York Times bestselling account of a thirty-six-day walk across Afghanistan, shortly after the fall of the Taliban: "stupendous . . . an instant travel classic" ( Entertainment Weekly).In January 2002, Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan, surviving by his wits, the kindness of strangers, and his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by ...

First time in paperback, with a new Introduction and final chapterWorld affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidin—the “soldiers of god”—whose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God we follow Kaplan’s extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless ...

The Blood of Lambs reveals the true inside story of the making and mind-set of a Muslim terrorist. Though his ties with terrorism were severed more than twenty years ago, it was not until 9/11, when radical Muslims rained terror on American shores, that Kamal Saleem stepped out of the shadows and revealed his true identity. Today, he is a different kind of warrior. He now stands on the wall and shouts to America, "Open your eyes and fight the danger that lives amo...

A poet and journalist looks back on a remarkable journey from Turkey to Nepal in 1978, when the region was on the brink of massive transformation.In the spring of 1978, at age twenty-two, Mark Abley put aside his studies at Oxford and set off with a friend on a three-month trek across the celebrated Hippie Trail — a sprawling route between Europe and South Asia, peppered with Western bohemians and vagabonds. It was a time when the Shah of Iran still reigned supreme,...

**Winner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan AwardThe former New York Times Pakistan bureau chief paints an arresting, up-close portrait of a fractured country.**Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times’s most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating indiv...

THE CARPET WARS is foreign correspondent Christopher Kremmer's riveting and timely account of a decade spent living, travelling and reporting from Asia and the Middle East.During his time reporting from Asia and the Middle East he formed an obsession with carpets and the 'perfect rug' - an obsession that saw him trace the threads of the carpet-making trade through the Islamic nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Along the way ...

“Matt Rees has taken a complex world of culture clash and suspicion and placed upon it humanity.”—David BaldacciOmar Yussef has taught history in Bethlehem for decades. When a favorite former student, a member of the Palestinian Christian minority, is arrested for collaborating with the Israelis in the killing of a Palestinian guerrilla—a transgression with an inevitable death sentence—Omar is sure he has been framed. When Omar begins to suspect the head of the Bet...

**Winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan AwardFinalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize“Rania Abouzeid has produced a work of stunning reportage from the very heart of the conflict, daring to go to the most dangerous places in order to get the story.” —Dexter Filkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Forever War**Award-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict th...