The Book of Gold Leaves

Like his first novel, The Collaborator, Mirza Waheed's second novel - The Book of Gold Leaves - is set in Kashmir. In this novel too, the conflict in Kashmir forms the backdrop, casting its shadow on a love story that runs parallel to the violence, as if Waheed poses the former as the only apposite counter to the other.

Khanqah is a small neighborhood in the city of Srinagar, where families have co-existed for decades, including those of Faiz and Roohi, and which also houses an ancient Sufi shrine where Faiz and Roohi first meet. The love story begins innocently enough. Indeed, in the way the novel begins, with its flowing descriptions of the Jhelum River, the Dal Lake and the city's fragrances and noises, it evokes the many Hindi films shot in Kashmir in the 1960s.