You see, Sara, it had to happen … I couldn’t have prevented it, could I? It could have been anyone, and it was me. It had to happen to someone, and it was me. Think about it. Of all the men in the world, of all the doctors in the world, of all the fathers in the whole world, I happened to be the one present in that place at that time. Someone or the other had to do it. It just so happens that someone was your dad.’ Where does one draw the line between empathy and sacrifice? Between integrity and survival? Between prosperity and love? In an unnamed city, a young Indian doctor arrives to make his home and career. It isn’t long before money and success find him, but the price is steep and often unbearable, especially to a wife and daughter who must watch him walk the perilous path of lifelong ambition. A heartbreaking novel about human ethics, filial love and the corrosive nature of complicity.
Author
Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in Kashmir. His debut novel, The Collaborator, was an international bestseller, a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award and the Shakti Bhat Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. In 2011, Waterstones selected it as part of its big literary debut promotion, ‘Waterstones 11’. It was also a book of the year for The Telegraph, New Statesman, Financial Times, Business Standard, and Telegraph India, among others. His second novel, The Book of Gold Leaves, was published in 2014 to critical acclaim. The Book of Gold Leaves was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016, longlisted for the Folio Prize, and was a finalist for the 2015 Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Fiction). Mirza has written for the BBC, the Guardian, Granta, Guernica, Scroll India, Caravan Magazine, Wriers Mosaic, Al Jazeera English, and The New York Times. Waheed’s latest novel Tell Her Everything was nominated for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 and Tata Literature Live Book of the Year. It won the Hindu Prize for Fiction 2019. Tell Her Everything was published by Melville House in the US and the UK in February 2023.
