"Our lady of Alice Bhatti" written by Muhammad Hanif
Review: The story follows a Christian nurse named Alice Bhatti working at a public hospital in Karachi and a police tout (unofficial muscle for when the police want to do things on the down-low) named ‘Teddy’ Butt, who fall in love. Complications ensue, ultimately leading to a tragic ending.
The language is rich, at times too rich, with sentences bursting at the seam with overripe imagery and lurid prose. The tone is earthy, vulgar, intense, and full of menace, as we are bombarded with images, colors, smells, and sounds – a barrage of impressions of the seedy underbelly of the city of Karachi. The novel deals with the themes of intolerance, misogyny, brutality, and the unlikely origins of hope – the grandest of themes writ large across a gaudy canvas. The biggest drawback in my mind is that the narrative stutters and skitters from image to image without really giving our impressions of the characters a chance to gel. Hanif is better at writing set pieces and the novel feels like a series of set pieces or vignettes strung together rather than an organic whole. As a result, the characters don’t properly come alive. It's like we are seeing snapshots of them at particular moments rather than their development over the course of the doomed love affair. As a result, I feel it's easier to engage with the setting than with the characters. And the setting is so sordid for the most part that I can see a lot of people getting turned off with the whole thing. The vividness is remarkable, but more engaging characters would make this easier to read.
If you are interested in Pakistani literature so I wanna suggest you read that book. 
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