Nadeem Aslam’s enthralling new novel, The Wasted Vigil, is about remembering the past. His characters find themselves in a house in ruins but fragrant with memories and humanity. At one level, they are stand-ins for the forces that have shaped modern Afghanistan - an English doctor, a Russian woman, an American gem trader, another American spy, an Afghan woman who wants to run a school, and a troubled Afghan who wants to rid his country of all foreigners and non-believers. Placing such an extraordinary, and arguably unlikely, cast of wounded people in one shattered home is risky: in less qualified hands it could become prosaic. But, like Michael Ondaatje in The English Patient before him, Aslam knows how to handle the rich material in front of him, because he is not merely a novelist; he is an artist and a poet.

Salil Tripathi reviews Nadeem Aslam’s A Wasted Vigil in the New Statesman. Salil has also profiled Nadeem for Tehelka.

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