Silk Tether

This is the real world of modern Karachi as seen through the eyes of a young woman in an elite family. Here are the hidden dramatic realities of the upper class, the undertow of religion, revealing the truth sometimes spoken in hushed whispers, more often swept away by the flourish of silk saris at extravagant dinner parties . . . or perhaps never mentioned at all.

Often tragic, always youthful, yet never what those in the West expect, here in fully realized first-person prose are the lives of Ayla, the protagonist, and her boundaries and customs, as well as those of her friends: Alia, oppressed by her wealthy, overly conservative parents, and Tanzeela, a teenager trapped in an abusive arranged marriage. From silk saris to bombings; from fundamentalism to American sympathy; from Dior makeup to desperate poverty; from sexual abuse to religious taboos, the world of Ayla, in her late teens, struggling in the real world of modern-day Pakistan, is anything but simple.

Silk Tether is a revealing, truthful, poignant novel destined to become a must-read by westerners seeking to understand the complex world of Islamic fundamentalist countries.

Minal Khan was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and received the Presidential Award for English Literature in Pakistan in 2005. She gained a degree in economics at Cornell University, where she also served as the international news editor for theCornell Progressive. She is currently furthering her studies at the University of California, Davis.