The Wasted Vigil

This is an extraordinarily powerful book. It’s about Afghanistan. Its power has two sources: cruelty and language. The cruelty is appalling; the language is strange and compelling. (At first, because of its strangeness, I thought it was a translation, but it's not; Aslam is a Pakistani raised in London.) It is, of necessity, an indictment of Islam, but also of the national belief systems of Russia and America. At its core, I suppose, it’s an indictment of humanity. And truly harrowing. Read it.