Summary Of The Book
The Pakistani Bride starts off with Qasim, who resides in Kohistan, which is a mountainous region located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Qasim loses his family to a smallpox epidemic, which leaves him devastated. He then decides to relocate to Pakistan and live in the Punjab region there. When he reaches the city, he meets an orphaned girl, Zaitoon, whom he decides to adopt.

Qasim makes a great deal of money, enough to support his daughter and himself. As time passes by, Qasim begins to reminisce the time he spent in his native place, Kohistan. His 15 year old daughter imagines Kohistan to be a land filled with romantic, tall men. Qasim desires to get his daughter married to a man belonging to his own tribe.

When Qasim and his daughter visit Kohistan to meet the groom, Zaitoon is shocked, as the setting in that region is entirely different from what she imagined. The men are rude and dominate women to the point that any kind of disobedience from their end could result in a death penalty. Zaitoon finds herself stuck in a society that is unlike the civilized city life she’s experienced. She soon decides to run away from Kohistan, despite being aware of the serious consequences that might follow. The Pakistani Bride is a stunning novel based on passion, lust, cruelty, murder, power, and sensuality, written in a highly engrossing manner to keep the readers glued to the very end.

About Bapsi Sidhwa
BapsiSidhwa is an author.
Sidhwa has also written Their Language of Love, City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore, and An American Brat.
Sidhwa was born in 1938, in Karachi. She holds a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. After getting married at 19, she relocated to Mumbai for five years. When she moved back to Lahore, she divorced her husband and remarried. She has also taught at Rice University, Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, the University of Houston, and Brandeis University. Sidhwa has been a Visiting Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation Center, Italy. She has been presented with the Premio Mondello for Foreign Authors and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award. She has also received the Bunting Fellowship in 1986. Sidhwa currently lives in Houston, US.