The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto is the Selection of The Book Club

All Harvard Club members and their guests are welcome to attend.

The Book Club has decided to read and discuss: The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto
Tuesday, May 31st from 6:30pm to 8:30 pm
  
The cozy Chevy Chase home of two members of the club. 
4426 Ridge Street, Chevy Chase  
Near the Bethesda Metro to the south.
Bring your own food and drink.
 
 
Fatima Bhutto's stunning debut novel The Shadow of the Crescent Moon begins and ends one rain swept Friday morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border.

Three brothers meet for breakfast. Soon after, the eldest, recently returned from America, hails a taxi to the local mosque. The second, a doctor, goes to check in at his hospital. His troubled wife does not join the family that morning. No one knows where Mina goes these days. And the youngest, the idealist, leaves for town on a motorbike. Seated behind him is a beautiful, fragile girl whose life and thoughts are overwhelmed by the war that has enveloped the place of her birth.

Three hours later their day will end in devastating circumstances.

 

The Shadow of the Crescent Moon chronicles the lives of five young people trying to live and love in a world on fire. Individuals are pushed to make terrible choices. And, as the events of this single morning unfold, one woman is at the centre of it all.

 

A first novel of uncommon poise and acuity, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is set in an old and protracted war for land and dignity. But its swift and suspenseful narrative describes a fiercely contemporary battle in the human heart: between the seductive fantasy of personal freedom and the tenacious claims of family, community and history.

 

Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul, grew up in Damascus, and lives in Karachi. This is her first novel. 

 
(She is the author of a memoir, Songs of Blood and Sword. The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is her first novel.)
 
(She is the granddaughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, whose sister was Benazir Bhutto. Fatima Bhutto graduated from Columbia University in 2004. She lives in Karachi and is a freelance writer.)
 
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