Kamila Shamsie; A God in Every Stone

'Kamila Shamsie's new novel deals with vast sweeps of history. Within its 300 pages, a story unfolds that covers the travels of the fifth-century BCE explorer Scylax, working on behalf of the Persian king Darius I; an attempt by early 20th-century archaeologists to recover the circlet worn by Scylax; the outbreak of the first world war; the experiences of Indian Army troops on the western front and later as injured servicemen in Brighton hospitals; the rise of the non-violent independence movement in Peshawar and the bloody killing of non-violent protesters by the British Army in 1930, in Peshawar's Qissa Khwani Bazaar.

The story follows a young Londoner, Vivian Rose Spencer, from an archaeological dig in Turkey back to Britain where she works as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during the first world war. After a crucial betrayal, she travels on to Peshawar. At the same time, the Pashtun soldier Qayyum Gul goes to Flanders with the 40th Pathans, who fought heroically and suffered devastating casualties during the second battle of Ypres in April 1915. Wounded, Qayyum is treated in Brighton before returning home to Peshawar to wrestle with his injuries and changed loyalties. Qayyum's brilliant younger brother, Najeeb, completes the circle by becoming Vivian's pupil, and later an archaeologist and "campaigner for the freedom from Empire for the peoples of India and Britain". On its way, A God in Every Stone takes in British women's battle for suffrage and the prelude to the Armenian genocide.

A novel that successfully connects and brings to life such a mass of material must be exceptionally brilliant, and possibly quite long. A God in Every Stone is an ambitious piece of work, and its pages are lit by Shamsie's eloquent prose'....Read more at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/18/a-god-every-stone-kamila-shamsie-review-story-histories

Kamila Shamsie will be in conversation with Xiaolu Guo at Mountains to Sea on Saturday September 13th at 6.30pm. This event will be chaired by Dublin novelist, short story writer and dramatist Mia Gallagher. Both authors were nominees for Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2013. Get your tickets now!