Night of the Golden Butterfly: A Novel (The Islam Quintet)

Completing an epic panorama that began in fifteenth-century Moorish Spain, Night of the Golden Butterfly moves between the cities of the twenty- first century, from Lahore to London, from Paris to Beijing. The narrator is rung one morning and reminded that he owes a debt of honor. The creditor is Mohammed Aflatunknown as Platoan irascible but gifted painter living in a Pakistan where human dignity has become a wreckage. Plato, who once specialized in stepping back into the limelight, now wants his life story written.

As the tale unravels we meet Platos London friend Alice Stepford, now a leading music critic in New York; Mrs. Naughty Latif, the Islamabad housewife whose fondness for generals forces her to flee to the salons of intellectually fashionable Paris; and theres Jindie, the Golden Butterfly of the title, the narrators first love. Interwoven with this chronicle of contemporary life is the turbulent history of Jindies family. Her great forebear, D Wnxi, led a Muslim rebellion in Yunnan in the nineteenth century and ruled the region for almost a decade, as Sultan Suleiman. Night of the Golden Butterfly reveals Ali in full flight, at once imaginative and intelligent, satirical and stimulating.