Book ReviewVolume 13 Issue # 24

Akram’s War

One night, Akram Khan walks out of his house towards an appointed  time  and  place where he is supposed to det- onate a bomb that will end his life and that of many innocent bystanders.

As he wanders through the town he encounters Grace, whose life has been marred just as his has, forming an un- likely  closeness  borne  of need and necessity.

Akram tells Grace about his seemingly inexorable journey towards  radicalization:  a childhood within the tight-knit Pakistani  community,  his complex friendships among outcasts, his disastrous years in the army, and his empty arranged marriage to a woman who remains a stranger. Delicately drawn, Akram’s Wa is an honest and shocking kaleido-scopic portrait of contemporary Britain, and of the ways in which the twists and turns of fate can scar and mark a life.

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