Filming - Tabish Khair

'Elegantly structured and taut with understated passion, Filming is a brilliant recreation of the lost world of early cinema and the continuing tragedy of religious hatred. Although set in an India that has now vanished, its delights as well as its message should find admiring readers everywhere' Independent

'Khair warns us of the perils of self-justification borne of partial self-knowledge. Given our capacity for self-delusion, can we cope, this novel asks, when our dreams come true?' New Statesman

'The picture that emerges may sear your soul much like your all-time favourite film' India Today

'An absorbing novel which is distinguished by its ambition, its structural inventiveness and its highly evocative prose' TLS

Set primarily in India and spanning the 20th century, Filming tells a series of stories, including that of one-time prostitute, Durga, who is persuaded to give away her young son, Ashok, and that of Saleem, the son of a prostitute and two-times star of the silver screen. As these stories - narrated by a writer who relates the details of other people's lives but is evasive about his own, a daughter who has inherited her father's hand-me-down version of their family history, and a scholar who deals in words but learns to read between the lines - intertwine and overlap, they combine to create a novel that is simultaneously about the small details and the bigger picture. Weaving together major historical events - including Partition, the assassination of Gandhi, the rise of photography and the Bombay film industry, and the development of barbed wire - with the everyday moments that make up the main fabric of our lives, Filming is both ambitious in its scope and impressive in its execution; never less than cohesive, it is a novel that is always more than the sum of its parts.