Backflap: Society Girl

Society Girl

by Saba Imtiaz & Tooba Masood-Khan.

Roli Books. Pages 331. Rs 595

It was October 1970. Poet and former civil servant Mustafa Zaidi had been found dead in his bedroom. In the next room, Shahnaz Gul, a married socialite, with whom Zaidi had an affair, lay unconscious. The ensuing scandal would shake Pakistani society, but two autopsies, several investigations and one trial later, no one was able to answer what exactly happened. Over 50 years later, authors Saba Imtiaz and Tooba Masood-Khan attempt to answer this question.

The Last Time I Saw You

by Akhil Katyal. HarperCollins.

Pages 151. Rs 399

Writer-translator Akhil Katyal’s ‘The Last Time I Saw You’ tells the story of how we encounter grief. It lays out the poet’s experience of an event of loss and its aftermath. What helps him move on are the memories surrounding him, and an unlikely cast of people, animals and objects. In the backdrop is a metropolis grappling with an unprecedented illness, the involuntary migration of its inhabitants, and the harrowing effects of a communal pogrom.

A Mystery Set to Music

by Sujatha. Bloomsbury.

Pages 216. Rs 499

A researcher from Madras, Kalyanaraman, is visiting Mempatti to collect folk songs. While Kalyanaraman is drawn to local girl Velli, the granddaughter of the late zamindar, in whose mansion he is staying, flirts openly with her promised husband. Ghosts and diaries of the dead stir up the volatile mix. Suspicion and ill-will set off by rival romantic longings finally erupt in murder.