Bilal Tanweer

Bilal Tanweer’s The Scatter Here Is Too Great is a collection of linked stories that some reviews have described as a novel (the jacket blurb says it is a “novel-in-stories”). The stories are set in modern Karachi and depict a city driven by a fierce and manic energy, where the desperate inhabitants grapple daily with the threat of violence within an uneasy atmosphere of religious fanaticism and sectarian division. The characters are a disparate group, from various walks of life and strata of society, and include a communist poet, mothers, children, teens, businessmen and young men seeking work. The critical and harrowing event that brings the characters together—or, at least, unifies them behind a common concern—is a bomb blast at a central train station. In each story the characters find themselves, in one manner or another, left to cope with the after-effects of the explosion, either picking up the pieces of their own life or that of someone else. Tanweer’s narrative style mimics the city’s chaotic energy. From the start the action moves quickly, and it is sometimes difficult for the reader to immediately grasp what is going on. Unlike a conventional novel, which gains momentum as an over-arching story assumes shape and form and we come to know a finite set of characters, the episodic structure of The Scatter Here Is Too Great demands that the reader become acquainted with a whole new set of characters every few pages. Eventually, the reader who opened the book expecting a novel will do one of two things: give up, or keep reading with the adjusted expectation that the book is not going deliver that experience. Readers who approach the book expecting a collection of stories will find their attention richly rewarded. Tanweer is a talented and daring writer who speaks in a unique voice about those who go about their business in a world where the necessities of life are not guaranteed and innocent people routinely come under attack. None of these tales are conventionally plotted and some—reminiscent of Garcia-Marquez at his most high-spirited—veer into the realm of magic realism. All in all, an impressive volume by an important young author who writes convincingly and without sentiment about the essentially tragic nature of contemporary urban life.… (mehr)

"This scatter I have gathered..make sense of things...read the crystal design on the broken screen", 4 January 2016

This review is from: The Scatter Here is Too Great (Hardcover)
"Ever seen a bullet-smashed windscreen?" Bilal Tanweer begins this book. "The hole at the centre throws a sharp clean web around itself and becomes crowded with tiny crystals. That's the metaphor for my world, this city: broken, beautiful and born of tremendous violence."

Set in his home town of Karachi, this captivating novel is almost a series of short stories, the characters all interlinked somehow, and all coming together when a bomb goes off in the city centre. But the heartache is not just the result of the atrocity: broken families, failure in life, mourning for the past are all beautifully treated in a work that would merit a second reading.
I sometimes found myself slightly confused as to who which of the characters I was reading about, but the clues are there. Lovely read!… (mehr)