An important book Vassanji writes about faith and conflict like no other. His prose is impeccable Khushwant Singh The Assassins Song is a stunning evocation of the physical and emotional landscape of a man caught between filial obligation and personal yearning, between the ancient and the modern. It is the story of Karsan Dargawalla, the estranged elder son of the Saheb of Pirbaag, and of Nur Fazal, a mysterious thirteenth-century sufi saint. In the aftermath of the Gujarat violence of... 2002, Karsan, heir to the now destroyed Pirbaag, shrine to the medieval sufi, begins to recall not only the rich history of his forefathers and his beloved Pirbaag but also the bittersweet journey that took him from his dusty village in Gujarat to the ivy covered campus of Harvard, and from the halls of academia to the blissful reverie of North American suburbia. Drawn back to where it all began, Karsan finds that in the circle of life, he forged his own identity independent of his fathers position and Pirbaag; lost and rediscovered his faith; watched his family be ripped apart by abandonment and death; and now, as he slowly remembers the bol of his forefathers and sings the ginans of Pirbaag, it is redemption that he seeks. But as he picks up the threads of a life he rejected decades ago, Karsan realizes there may be no absolution. A novel of grand historical sweep and intricate personal drama, The Assassins Song is a heartbreaking ballad of life irrevocably tainted by the bigotry of narrow thought and rigid faith. Full of the delicate insight and searing compassion that are M.G. Vassanjis hallmarks Shashi Tharoor