Winner of the Crossword Prize for non-fiction, ‘“Curfewed Night’” is a passionate and important book – a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen to ignore.' Salman Rushdie
Basharat Peer was a teenager when the separatist movement exploded in Kashmir in 1989. Over the following years countless young men, fuelled by feelings of injustice, crossed over the Line of Control to train in Pakistani army camps. Peer was sent off to boarding school in Aligarh to keep out of trouble. He finished college and became a journalist in Delhi. But Kashmir – angrier, more violent, more hopeless – was never far away.
In 2003 Peer, now a young journalist, left his job and returned to his homeland. Drawing a harrowing portrait of Kashmir and her people – a mother forced to watch her son hold an exploding bomb, politicians living in refurbished torture chambers, picturesque villages riddled with landmines – this is above all, a story of what it really means to return home – and the discovery that there may not be any redemption in it.
Lyrical, spare, gut wrenching and intimate, Curfewed Night is a powerful and intensely moving debut, combining the insight of a journalist with the prose of a poet.
'A passionate and important book – a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen to ignore.' Salman Rushdie
Reviews
'A passionate and important book – a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen to ignore.' Salman Rushdie
'The story of Kashmir has never been told before so evocatively and profoundly. Peer writes with the skill of a novelist, the insight of a journalist and the evocative power of a poet' Ahmed Rashid, author of 'The Taliban and Descent into Chaos'
‘An excellent account of growing up during the uprising in Kashmir’ William Dalrymple, New York Review of Books
‘Describing the ruin of Kashmir, Curfewed Night doesn't only shock, it challenges our most cherished beliefs–in democracy, rule of law, and the power of individual conscience. Everyone should read it.’ Pankaj Mishra
‘Beautifully written, brutally honest and deeply hurtful.' Khushwant Singh
About the author
Basharat Peer was born in Kashmir in 1977. He studied political science at Aligarh Muslim University and journalism at Columbia University. He has worked as a reporter at Rediff and Tehelka and has written for various publications including the Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman and Foreign Affairs where he was assistant editor. He is currently based in New York.
