Book launch: ‘An Isolated Incident’ makes it to capital’s bookstores

Pakistani-American author Soniah Kamal holds reading at Kuch Khaas

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani-American author Soniah Kamal launched her debut novel, “An Isolated Incident” at Kuch Khaas on Tuesday. The novel explores healing and survival through devastation of love and loss and is a romantic tale set in the backdrop of the Kashmir conflict.

Kamal, who took over two decades to write the book, conceived the idea when she was in high school. She described her writing as a two-fold process: thinking and writing, saying that often the former took longer.

In the plot, Kamal, who has been writing since she was eight, has incorporated stories and family myths she had grown up hearing. She took up the initiative following a promise to her late Kashmiri grandfather that she would write a story about Kashmir.



Spanning Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan and America, the story explores the pre-9/11 era, for which she said she had to do extensive research since many of the reading material from that time was not available online.

The story follows Zari Zoon, a young refugee from Indian Kashmir, who has come to the United States following a tragedy, to live with a distant uncle and his son, Billy.

Both the protagonists, Zoon and Billy are 19-years-old and are drawn to each other – Zari by her need to reconnect after experiencing trauma
and Billy, who finds his life in DC’s suburbs unfulfilled, and discovers in Zari and her past a reason to live and go to war.

Brought up on the tales of his grandfather’s heroism, Billy is eager to live up to his grandfather’s freedom fighting days, but little does he realise that the truth he believes will set him free can just as easily imprison him.

Speaking about the book, Kamal said: “I wanted to explore the role of silence and speaking up, in memory and history both personal and collective.”

As for inspiration, she said that her maternal family is from Srinagar and one summer, relatives visiting Lahore related how difficult life in Kashmir was (at the time) and that a late-night knock could very well mean death or even worse.

“I could not get the ‘even worse’ out of my mind and the story and (Zoon’s) character were born in tandem. Billy was born when a schoolmate’s brother ran off to become a ‘freedom fighter.’ This boy was from an affluent family, he’d studied at elite schools, was a stellar student, was supposed to make his mark on the world-only, not in the way he did, and I saw  how his act changed his family. Then it was just a matter of bringing these two worlds together.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2014.