No Honour by Awais Khan

 

It was when they snatched the baby from her that she realised how serious the situation had become. She watched her twin bother, Aslam, wrap her daughter - his niece - in a filthy rag that he might have picked up in the stables... He tossed the knitted shawl she had made for the baby onto the ground.

***

The Blurb

In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect. And, yet, her spirit is defiant and she yearns to make a home with the man she loves.

When the unthinkable happens, Abida faces the same fate as other young girls who have chosen unacceptable alliances – certain, public death. Fired by a fierce determination to resist everything she knows to be wrong about the society into which she was born, and aided by her devoted father, Jamil, who puts his own life on the line to help her, she escapes to Lahore and then disappears.

Jamil goes to Lahore in search of Abida – a city where the prejudices that dominate their village take on a new and horrifying form – and father and daughter are caught in a world from which they may never escape.

Moving from the depths of rural Pakistan, riddled with poverty and religious fervour, to the dangerous streets of over-populated Lahore, No Honour is a story of family, of the indomitable spirit of love in its many forms … a story of courage and resilience, when all seems lost, and the inextinguishable fire that lights one young woman’s battle for change.

My Review

Wow! This is a very thought provoking and powerful book.

Set in a small village in Pakistan, the book opens with a young woman and her baby being murdered by her twin brother in the name of bringing  dishonour on her family. This is probably one of the most powerful openings to a book I have read in quite some time.

This sets the tone for the whole theme of the book.  Women are totally in the hands of the patriarchal figures of both her family and society.  The novel demonstrates how these young women can be exploited and abused by men in a society that deems them as useless and superfluous. The book is filled with sadness and is heartrending but also demonstrates hope.

The author has taken an extremely difficult subject in tackling such taboo subjects. He writes unflinchingly and with an honesty that is arresting. I could not put this book down. It was utterly compelling and Mr. Khan's writing had me gripped from the first sentence to the last.

At the time of writing this, I have already begun reading another of his novels. He writes extremely well, and understands his characters completely. The book is written in alternating chapters between Abida and her father Jamil. I adored Jamil. His willingness to stand up to his village elders and face the consequences of doing so in order to protect his daughter was admirable in the extreme. His demonstration of his love for her above all else made for emotive and compelling reading.

I can hardly wait to read more work from the pen of this author, and I highly recommend this one.

Update: since writing this review I have published my review of In the Shadows of Love. You can find my review by clicking on the title.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1913193782

Publisher:  Orenda Books

Formats: e-book, audio and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)

No. of Pages:  276 (paperback)

Buy Links:

Bookshop.org

AmazonUK

WaterstonesUK

Amazon US

Orenda Books

About the Author:

Awais Khan is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Durham He has studied creative writing with Faber Academy. His debut novel, In the Company of Strangers, was published to much critical acclaim and he regularly appears on TV and Radio. The critically acclaimed No Honour was published in 2021. Awais also teaches a popular online creative writing course to aspiring writers around the world. He is currently working on his third book. When not working, he has his nose buried in a book. He lives in Lahore.

(media courtesy of the publishers website https://orendabooks.co.uk/authors/awais-khan)

(all opinions are my own)

(affiliated to bookshop.org)