A bomb goes off on a college campus. A shaken Sara and Omar first notice each other. Their eyes lock and there it is – a beginning sparked in chaos, an end foretold. Four years later, their story is remembered, retold by friends, spoken of fondly by their teachers. That story unfolds between these covers: one about the noise that balloons make when they burst; of lessons on using your mother’s death to your advantage; about a cry for help even though all you did was barely scrape your knee; about running faster than the wind, climbing mountains, and learning how to keep your balance in a thunderstorm. This is a tale of Pakistan and what it means to live and love in apocalyptic times. It is an ode to life in college – with all its hopes and despairs, plans and uncertainties, falling in love and trying to keep up the grades, figuring the possibilities of the self and letting go of who we are. Sheheryar B. Sheikh’s The Still Point of the Turning World is a haunting meditation on young people and their awakening – into adulthood, romance and a political space that is constantly shifting around them. ©HarperCollins India 2018

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