Nisar Chowdhury returns to Dhaka, the city of his forefathers, from Chicago, feeling estranged to both. The city that awaits him, however, is not the one that lives in his memory. It is a place now replete with its own share of tales from new islands of splendour. Nisar must come to terms with his father's decision to sell their patrimony – remnants of their link to this country. He meets people who have morphed along with the city, while unravelling the ways of Dhaka's new world – wading through a haze of deceit, guile, friendship and love.

Weaving together a gripping sequence of events, this novel explores what it means to live in a world where power and privilege can afford to sustain relationships veneered by half-truths. This is Nadeem Zaman's rich portrait of a city and its people in the clutch of stupefying change.