Kamila Shamsie

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Best of Friends

'A profound novel about friendship. I loved it to pieces' MADELINE MILLER

** SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDIE BOOK AWARDS 2023 ** PICKED AS ONE OF THE SUNDAY TIMES' BEST PAPERBACKS OF 2023** CHOSEN AS A BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR BY THE GUARDIAN, BBC, OBSERVER, DAILY MAIL, IRISH TIMES AND FINANCIAL TIMES **

Sometimes it was as though the forty years of friendship between them was just a lesson in the unknowability of other people...

In 1988, as Pakistan is on the brink of political overhaul, two fourteen year-old girls are on the brink of womanhood. Their Arcadian days of secrets, laughter and a shared love for George Michael are brought crashing down when a snap decision at a party changes their lives forever.

Years later in London, Zahra and Maryam are women with money, power and influence. They are both, however, still haunted by that night all those years ago.

Insightful and unsettling, Best of Friends employs sumptuous prose to unpick the seams of a forty-year friendship and illuminate the ripple-like effects of power and history.

'An epic story that explores the ties of childhood friendship, the possibility of escape, the way the political world intrudes into the personal, all through the lens of two sharply drawn protagonists' Observer