Salt and Saffron

'Beautifully written in cunning, punning, glancing prose' - Independent

'A whirlwind ... Owes plenty to Salman Rushdie and some to Hollywood ... Exuberant, knowingly exotic and deceptively serious' - Guardian

'Kamila Shamsie has created a rich, bright world' - Times Literary Supplement

Coming back to Karachi is like stepping into the sea again after months on land.

Aliya finds herself constantly enraptured by her family's unsettling legends. These are troublesome stories, tinged by the Dard-e-Dil's fear that they are cursed by their 'not-quite' twins. As she becomes romantically intertwined with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Aliya begins to see links between herself and her scandalous aunt Mariam, which may spell her undoing.

A tale of family lore, secrets and forbidden love, Salt and Saffron is an awe-inspiring novel written with compassion, wryness and glittering prose.

'A funny, clever and romantic story' - Barbara Trapido

'The stories within the stories describe Pakistani society, its peoples and its mores, better than anything that has come from the Other Side for a long time. This is a good read' - India Today