Faber and Faber Ltd

Nadeem Aslam's fourth novel, The Blind Man's Garden, set, like its predecessor in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, and is already garnering terrific reviews: writing in the Independent, Leyla Sanai said of it: 'Once or twice a year, a book stuns me. Nadeem Aslam's fourth novel, The Blind Man's Garden, has done just that. My expectations were high: Aslam has won a clutch of prizes. But the power of this extraordinary novel is still jarring.' And James Lasdun in the Guardian wrote: 'by any measure The Blind Man's Garden is an impressive accomplishment; a gripping and moving piece of storytelling that gets the calamitous first act in the "War on Terror" on to the page with grace, intelligence and rare authenticity.' In this short film, Nadeem explains what he set out to do in the book.

The war on terror through the lens of devastating personal experience in this stunning novel from the author of The Wasted Vigil and Maps for Lost Lovers. A searing, exquisitely written novel set in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the months following 9/11 - a story of war, of one family's losses, and of the simplest, most enduring human impulses. Jeo and Mikal, foster-brothers from a small Pakistani city, secretly enter Afghanistan: not to fight with the Taliban, but to help and care for wounded civilians. But it soon becomes apparent that good intentions can't keep them out of harm's way... From the wilds of Afghanistan to the heart of the family left behind - their blind father haunted for years by the death of his wife, by the mistakes he may have made in the name of Islam and nationhood, Jeo's steadfast wife and her superstitious mother - Aslam's prose takes us on an extraordinary journey, through war, tragedy, love and brotherhood. Here he discusses how he wrote the novel, and the themes behind it.

An edge-of-your-seat thriller written with great humanity and humour, following an elderly American on the run across Norway with a kid in danger. Eighty-two years old, and recently widowed, Sheldon Horowitz has grudgingly moved to Oslo, with his grand-daughter and her Norwegian husband. When Sheldon witnesses the murder of a woman in his apartment complex, he rescues her six-year-old son and decides to run. Pursued by both the Balkan gang responsible for the murder, and the Norwegian police, he has to rely on marine training from over half a century before to try and keep the boy safe. Against a strange and foreign landscape, this unlikely couple, who can't speak the same language, start to form a bond that may just save them both. Compelling and sophisticated, it is both a chase through the woods thriller and an emotionally haunting novel about ageing and regret. Here Derek B Miller reads from the novel and talks about Sheldon.