Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to one another’s partners, until they rematched in what they call “the fiancée swap.” But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents’ exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family’s turbulent history, but also a country’s—and now a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love.
A love story with a family mystery at its heart, from an author named as one of the Orange Prize’s “21 Writers for the 21st Century,” Kartography transports readers to a world not often seen in fiction: vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan.