Kamila Shamsie--Spice Up Your Reading with Something Exotic
Recently I was looking for books that were out of the ordinary and not so mainstream. I was looking for something more exotic. It is very difficult to find a read that is not being pushed forward by the book industry or to resist a bestseller that's been on the top-ten list for years. I think every single person in my circle of friends has readThe Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The majority of the books one comes across in the western world are from authors who are either English, American, or French. Sometimes the shelves are spiced up selections with a touch of magical realism from certain South American writers, but that's about as exotic as it gets. This time I wanted something completely different, which led me to Asia.
What country, I thought, might have a strong literary culture that I know absolutely nothing about? In my quest for the very different, I decided to pinpoint a country that is in the news only if a bomb has exploded or a natural disaster has occurred. Pakistan fit the bill perfectly. I knew very little about it, other than what one hears on the daily news. As soon as I choose Pakistan, I was on the hunt for a female writer. I came up with Kamila Shamsie and her book, Salt and Saffron. The title was exhilarating; it suggested spice and I was up for anything that might lend a little flavor to my reading .
Salt and Saffron tells the tale of a young woman, Aliya, from the legendary and aristocratic Dard-E-Dil family. This large and wealthy family has all the problems you'd expect in any big family. The plot plays out in London and Karachi, and the reader learns the long and complicated history of the family. At times I was not sure if I was reading it correctly because of unfamiliar words popping up now and then, but overall the narrative is a thorough telling of the story of Aliya and her family.
Samshie reveals clues about the family in a moderate fashion, in much the same way you would moderately salt your food, but always leaving a taste for more. As the story unfolds, the reader is surprised by the way the feelings and understanding of Aliya turn out as she searches for the untold truth of the family. The book is also a modern love story that explores love across social boundaries.
Sometimes we think that social status is not so important in western society, when compared, for instance, to the caste system in India. But when you look more closely, the same dynamics appear here as anywhere else, only they are more subtle in the society we know and live in than they seem in others. Kamila Shamsie has grasped the fine lines between different cultures well and has made a wonderful story out of the mix.
Shamsie comes from a family of writers, which is surely part of the reason she is so skillful. She studied creative writing in the USA and yet has not lost a single touch of the exoticism that I hoped her book would have. Salt and Saffron is her second book. Others she has written are her debut novel, In the City by the Sea, Kartograhy, and Broken Verses. Reading any of these is like travelling to an exotic country where you live a life that is much different from your own. I can only say, live it well!