Blasphemy

Author: Tehmina Durrani
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 227
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0140280049

Description

Now available in paperback edition, one of the exciting books of 1998.

Tehmina Durrani made her sensational literary debut in 1991 with her controversial autobiography My Feudal Lord. Blasphemy, her next major work, promises to generate the same degree of excitement. Set in south Pakistan, the novel inspired by a true story, is a searing study of evil; an uncompromising look at the distortion of Islam by predatory religious leaders.

In prose of great power and intensity, the author tells the tragic story of the beautiful Here, brutalized and corrupted by Pir Sain, the man of God, whom she is married to when barely fifteen. But the nightmare she is locked into is not hers alone; it affects the entire clan that owes allegiance to the pir. In the Pir's haveli, unspeakable horrors are perpetrated every day and every night, all in the name of Allah. Sucked into the fetid hell of her lord's making, Heer loses her dignity, her freedom, even her humanity, till a terrible resolution gives her back to herself.

COMMENTS:

The enduring impression of the book is its sustained capacity to shock the reader ... you turn the pages, compelled to read on. - Biblio

Durrani has dared breach the one are that remains taboo for most citizens of Islamic countries: the powerful mullah-pir community and their perversion of the Prophet's word... - The Hindu

Contents

CHAPTER 1
Release

CHAPTER 2
Stepping Out

CHAPTER 3
Stepping In

CHAPTER 4
Jahanum

CHAPTER 5
Unbound

CHAPTER 6
Circling the Square

CHAPTER 7
The Lure of Innocence

CHAPTER 8
Chote Sain

CHAPTER 9
Killer Waves

CHAPTER 10
Heroes

CHAPTER 11
In the Name of Allah

CHAPTER 12
Shattering the Myth

Epilogue