From the author of the internationally acclaimed The Storyteller s Tale and Jimmy the Terrorist, this is a spare, nostalgic and moving novel about love, family, home and belonging.

After years of trying to belong to Lucknow, once a city of poetry and grace where he had hoped to find something of the father he had lost, Hassan meets a kindred spirit Ahmed Sahib, an elderly man of quiet warmth and dignity, although diminished in circumstance. Ahmed Sahib shows him a Lucknow that could become home, and gives him the gift of unspoken friendship.

Later, Ahmed Sahib also leads him to love to Samina, seeking a harbour as Hassan himself has done for half a lifetime. Bound by their common search, they try to make a home in Lucknow, but the city is changing. When an exquisite little monument in the old quarter is demolished, departure becomes inevitable. Will the old search begin once again in a distant land? Will they be together in the search again? And where will it take them?

Spare, nostalgic and moving, Omair Ahmad s new novella is a meditation on love, lost and gained, and on ideas of family, home and belonging.

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