An Abundance of Wild Roses
Feryal Ali-Gauhar
Available as Hardback, eBook, Downloadable audio
A UK debut by a critically acclaimed author – a novel that combines lyrical storytelling with urgent contemporary themes of gender violence, tradition and patriarchy
In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first snowball in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems – including the injured stranger – and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love letter and incurs her father’s wrath. A lame boy foretells disaster, but nobody is listening. Trapped in terrible danger, a wolf-dog is battling ice and death to save a soldier’s life. Beaten by her addict husband for bearing him only daughters, a woman is pregnant again – but can this child save her?
All the while, the spirits of the mountains keep a baleful eye on the doings of the humans. In a land woven with myth, chained with tradition and afflicted by ongoing conflict and the march of progress, can the villagers find a way to co-exist with nature that doesn’t destroy either of them?
“Exceptionally well-told … Feryal writes with complete passion and dedication about her central themes – feminism, environmentalism and the elements that must be respected about dissimilar cultures”
friday Times
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”An Abundance of Wild Roses will leave you breathless … There is a deep and poetic sadness in Feryal Ali-Gauhar’s writing [and she] writes with compassion”
dawn
“Feryal Ali-Gauhar’s writing helps us see the world as she does – clearly. To see how human beings are both awful and kind, and how often animals are far kinder than humans, and to feel the mountains and the rivers and the wind speak to you. But above all, this is a story that helps you understand the greatest mystery of all: love”
Radhika Jha
“Compelling”
natura By Wwf
“Lyrical”
camden New Journal
Feryal Ali-Gauhar
Feryal Ali-Gauhar’s first novel, The Scent of Wet Earth in August, was a bestseller in India, her second novel, No Space for Further Burials, won the Patras Bokhari award and was translated into several European languages. Her third novel, An Abundance of Wild Roses, was written with the assistance of the Roger Deakin award for environmental activism. Ali-Gauhar has served as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Population Fund. She is an actor, film-maker, columnist, novelist, animal rights activist and currently serves as Advisor at the Water and Power Development Authority of Pakistan for cultural heritage management of Diamer Bhasha Dam.