{"title":"VBL AD June 2026 - Pakistan Fictions","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"society-girl","title":"SOCIETY GIRL","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn an October morning in 1970, phones began ringing all over Karachi. The charismatic young poet and former civil servant Mustafa Zaidi had been found dead in his bedroom. He wasn’t alone: Shahnaz Gul, a stunningly beautiful, married socialite, with whom Zaidi had been having an affair, was lying unconscious in the next room, seemingly drugged.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe ensuing scandal would shake Pakistani society, becoming a fixture on the front pages of newspapers even as the country went from one cataclysmic event to another. It grew to include obsession, revenge porn, the involvement of influential politicians and businessmen, and even a smuggling ring. But two autopsies, several investigations, and one trial later – no one was able to answer what exactly happened in that bedroom, and how Mustafa Zaidi ended up dead.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOver fifty years later, authors Saba Imtiaz and Tooba Masood-Khan attempt to answer this question in Society Girl. Their retelling of, and years-long investigation into this story of twisted motives and murderous intentions, of it-girls and playboys, of class and culture, and a press out for blood and salaciousness, led to a far more complex tale than anyone could have possibly imagined.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42602591420452,"sku":null,"price":1895.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9786277626471.jpg?v=1767443794"},{"product_id":"are-you-enjoying","title":"ARE YOU ENJOYING?","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"van-product-description\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eChildhood best friends decide to marry in order to keep their sexuality a secret. A young heiress embarks on a secret affair, ending in devastation but not for the party who was braced for it. A glum divorcee reaches out to his American neighbour. A radicalised student's preparations for his sister's wedding in Lahore involve beating up the groom. An actress from a sheltered background in Karachi is forced to grow up fast on the set of her first major TV show where the real intrigue takes place off-screen.\u0026lt;\u0026gt;\u0026lt;\u0026gt;From one of Pakistan's most exciting young writers comes an exhilarating, audacious debut story collection; upending traditional notions of identity, scrutinising the relationship between power and desire, and fizzing with energy and wit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42610153717796,"sku":"9781408895054","price":1840.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9781408895054-f.jpg?v=1757592006"},{"product_id":"the-diary-of-a-social-butterfly","title":"THE DIARY OF A SOCIAL BUTTERFLY","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"van-product-description\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEveryone knows me. All of Lahore, all of Karachi, all of Isloo — oho, baba, Islamabad — half of Dubai, half of London and all of Khan Market and all the nice, nice bearers in Imperial Hotel also... No ball, no party, no dinner, no coffee morning, no funeral, no GT Get Together. yaar —is complete without me. \u003cbr\u003e\u0026lt;\u0026gt;br\u0026gt;Meet Butterfly, Pakistan's most lovable, silly, socialite. An avid partygoer, inspired misspeller, and unwittingly acute observer of Pakistani high society, Butterfly is a woman like no other. In her world, SMS becomes S \u0026amp; M and people eat 'three tiara cakes' while shunning 'do number ka maal'. 'What cheeks!' as she would say. As her country faces tribulations — from 9\/11 to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto — Butterfly glides through her world, unfazed, untouched, and stopped short only by the chip in her manicure. Wicked and hugely entertaining, The Diary of a Social Butterfly gives you a delicious glimpse into the parallel universe of the have-musts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42613288501284,"sku":null,"price":1345.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/B01000.jpg?v=1757659947"},{"product_id":"moth-smoke-2","title":"MOTH SMOKE","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"van-product-description\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSince the late 1970s, India in all her infinite variety has been brought to life as a posse of Indian authors writing in English have exploded onto the scene: Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Bharati Mukherjee--the list is legion. But what of Pakistan--that Siamese twin, painfully separated in the partition of 1947? Though neither as numerous nor as well known as their Indian counterparts, Pakistani writers are beginning to make an impression on Western readers. Novelists from Rushdie to the Pakistani Bapsi Sidwha have written about the partition and the bloody civil war that followed; even stories set in modern-day Bombay or Lahore cannot escape the aftershocks of the division. On the surface, Mohsin Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke, seems more domestic than political drama: narrated from several different perspectives, it tells the story of Daru Shezad's ill-fated affair with his best friend's wife, Mumtaz. But in a country like Pakistan, the personal and the political are difficult to separate, and as the story moves along, the divisions between gender, class, and opportunity provide a not-so-subtle commentary on the fissures that run through contemporary Pakistani society. The novel begins, tellingly, with a historical fragment about the internecine wars of succession that followed the rule of Emperor Shah Jahan (builder of the Taj Mahal):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImprisoned in his fort at Agra, staring at the Taj he had built, an aged Shah Jahan received as a gift from his youngest son the head of his eldest. Perhaps he doubted, then, the memory that his boys had once played together, far from his supervision and years ago, in Lahore.Jump ahead several hundred years to Lahore in the summer of 1998. Childhood playmates Daru and Ozi have just reunited again after Ozi's three-year stay in America. Glad as he is to see his old friend, Daru can't keep his eyes off of Ozi's wife, Mumtaz. \"You know you're in trouble when you can't meet a woman's eye,\" he says. But woman trouble isn't his only problem; he's also addicted to hash, which leads to his dismissal from an upscale job as a banker. Soon Daru spirals out of control into a degraded existence on the fringes of society. Then a young boy is killed in a hit-and-run accident, and he is accused and jailed. Shah Jehan would probably recognize this age-old story of love and revenge playing out once more--this time against the backdrop of the Indian-Pakistani arms race. Hamid artfully weaves the subcontinent's tragic history into his characters' no-less-tragic present, rendering Moth Smoke a novel that resonates on many levels. --Sheila Bright\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42613501886500,"sku":"9780143420200","price":715.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9780143420200-f.jpg?v=1757663707"},{"product_id":"before-she-sleeps","title":"BEFORE SHE SLEEPS","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"van-product-description\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn modern, beautiful Green City, gender selection, war and a virus outbreak have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technological surveillance to control its people, and women must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible. Yet there are women who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night, to provide to the rich and elite of Green City a type of commodity that nobody can buy: intimacy without sex. As it turns out, not even the most influential men can shield them from discovery and the dangers of ruthless punishment. This dystopian novel from one of Pakistan’s most talented writers is a modern-day parable. It takes the patriarchal practices of female seclusion, gender selection and control over women’s bodies, and recasts them to imagine a world of terrifying postreligious authoritarianism.\n\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42613615493156,"sku":"9789698729806","price":1075.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9789698729806-f.jpg?v=1757664629"},{"product_id":"tales-from-shakespeare-2","title":"TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE","description":"","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42613644951588,"sku":"9789699903045","price":630.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9789699903045-f.jpg?v=1757665722"},{"product_id":"we-love-you-bunny","title":"WE LOVE YOU, BUNNY","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eThe highly-anticipated follow up to the viral sensation\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eBunny\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e, a brilliantly written, laugh-out-loud funny, dark and delirious novel set in the Bunny-verse – a world that Margaret Atwood declared ‘soooo genius’.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn the cult classic novel \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBunny\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely outsider student at a highly selective MFA program in New England, was first ostracised and then seduced by a clique of her saccharine sweet, rich girl cohort (who call one another ‘Bunny’). An invitation to the Bunnies’ Smut Salon leads Samantha down a dark rabbit hole (pun intended) into the violently surreal world of their off-campus Workshops where monstrous creations are conjured with wondrous yet deadly consequences.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eWe Love You, Bunny\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies’ side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers ― and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eFrankenstein\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eby way of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eHeathers\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eWe Love You, Bunny\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete standalone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to a dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever dream, Mona Awad.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43081492824100,"sku":null,"price":3685.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9781398535169.jpg?v=1766212831"},{"product_id":"rumours-of-spring","title":"RUMOURS OF SPRING","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRumours of Spring by Farah Bashir is the unforgettable account of an adolescence spent in Srinagar in the 1990s. As Indian troops and militants battle across the cityscape, and violence becomes the new normal, a young schoolgirl finds that regular tasks – studying for exams, walking to the bus stop, combing her hair, falling asleep – are riddled with anxiety and fear. With haunting simplicity, Farah captures moments of vitality and resilience from her girlhood amidst the increasing trauma and turmoil of passing years – secretly dancing to pop songs from banned radio stations; writing her first love letter; going to the cinema for the first time. This deeply affecting comingof-age memoir portrays how territorial conflict surreptitiously affects everyday life in Kashmir.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43125948612644,"sku":null,"price":985.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9789698729653.png?v=1767494882"},{"product_id":"rebel-english-academy","title":"REBEL ENGLISH ACADEMY","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Pakistan’s first elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hanged, the people of OK Town refuse to believe he is dead and fight to bring him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the heart of the city, Sir Baghi is surprised by a knock at the door of the Rebel English Academy, his tuition center that offers affordable English lessons. An unexpected visitor, Sabiha, seeks refuge at the Academy—her husband has just died in a house fire, and she insists she only ran away from a burning building. Baghi encourages Sabiha to write, and a lifetime of secrets begin to unspool on the page.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeanwhile Captain Gul, who botched his hanging duty, has been banished to OK Town, where he aims to squash the protestors wanting to bring Bhutto back from the dead. But his duties and romantic desires begin to overlap, and his already dubious power is threatened.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Rebel English Academy, Pakistan is struggling under martial law after the execution of its former leader. Mohammed Hanif has constructed a vibrant cast of interconnected characters that face this changing landscape with violence, passion, and sharp humor. Wry, searing, and deeply relevant, Rebel English Academy is a triumphant new novel about political power, religion, education, sexuality, and perpetual dissent.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vanguard Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43576752701476,"sku":null,"price":2700.0,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0739\/4823\/3764\/files\/9789694191317.jpg?v=1771577196"}],"url":"https:\/\/vanguardbooks.com\/collections\/faisal-classic-2.oembed","provider":"Vanguard Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}