The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Amad

This was on the Wall Street Journal's list of 10 Best Books in 2022 and it is an interesting read. Faraz was born and raised in Lahore’s old city to a courtesan. He is forced to leave behind his mother and his sister Rozina when his father takes him away to ensure he has better life, although not a legitimate one. It isn’t until Faraz is an adult in 1968 working as a policeman, that he goes back to the old city to investigate the murder of a young girl who worked as a mujra, a courtesan, last seen with one of Lahore’s most powerful politicians. But Faraz is a stranger to his childhood home: estranged from his father Wajid, a Lahori bureaucrat who refuses to acknowledge his illegitimate son, his mother, a courtesan herself, and his sister Rozina, a Lollywood star whose career has seen better days. The author uses the noir genre to explore the scope of Pakistani history from World War II to the 1970s. Faraz’s investigation takes him from Lahori protests against Ayub Khan in 1968, to Dhaka in 1971 at the beginning of Bangladesh’s Revolutionary War. Rozina grapples with her relationship with her daughter and the lies she had to live for her career as an actress. And as a soldier in the Indian Army, Wajid spends his days as a prisoner of war, fighting for freedom as a colonial subject. It’s through the disparate members of this one family, and Faraz’s fraught search for justice and for home that the troubled nature of Pakistan is depicted.