The Map and the Scissors

WINNER OF THE TATA LITERATURE LIVE! BOOK OF THE YEAR (FICTION) 2022

‘You cannot force two nations to live together any more than you can force two people,’ he says quietly.

Fatima smiles, feeling a slight thrill of victory. ‘Divorce.’

‘Pakistan.’

Two intense, inflexible personalities duel over a question that will decide the fate of millions: one nation-or two?

Jinnah, the consummate, ruthlessly analytical gentleman in a tailored suit, starts out sceptical of those who come to his door proposing a ‘Land of the Pure’, but ends up founding exactly such a country. Gandhi, the religious visionary in homespun khadi, experiments with Truth in his quest for one India-only to witness, in anguish, the bloody birth of two nations.

The Map and the Scissors is a novel about the epic origin story of modern South Asia, brought to life by two London-educated lawyers, mirror-image rivals who dreamt the same dream of freedom-in catastrophically incompatible ways.

“