Scenes From Early Life

"Beautifully packed with detail . . . Does for Bangladesh what Rushdie did for India." --"The Sunday Times

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Philip Hensher's husband, Zaved Mahmood, was born in late 1970 in Dacca, then a regional capital of Pakistan. In the months following his birth, the eastern part of the country split from the western side in a war of independence of savage violence. In December 1971, after the deaths of millions of innocent victims in the civil war, a new country was declared: Bangladesh, the home of the Bengalis.

"Scenes from Early Life "is the story of one upper-middle-class Bengali family, told in the form of a memoir narrated by Zaved. It is an autobiography, a novel, and, in part, a history of one of the most ferocious of twentieth-century civil wars. Despite the violence and upheaval, this is also a book about love and the way that stories bind people together. This new book from one of Britain's finest writers "shows for the first time what Hensher has largely concealed in the past: his heart," writes "The Independent." "It is one of the most delightful and engaging descriptions of family life to have been published for many years."