The Geometry of God

A KIRKUS REVIEWS’ BEST BOOK OF 2009

FINALIST IN FOREWORD REVIEWS’ BEST BOOKS OF 2009

WINNER: BRONZE AWARD, INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS BOOK AWARDS 2010

ONE OF “TEN INCREDIBLE BOOKS BY MUSLIM WOMEN WRITERS”—NYLON MAGAZINE

EDITIONS: USA & Canada, Pakistan, India, France, Spain, Italy, UK

‘Elegant, sensuous and fiercely intelligent, a wonderfully inventive story that pits science against politics and the freedom of women against the insecurities of men.’—Kamila Shamsie

‘Such wonderful and persuasive writing. No one writes like her about the body, about the senses, about the physical world.’ —Nadeem Aslam

‘Khan, a fearless young Pakistani novelist, writes about what lies beneath the surface. (Her) urgent defense of free thought and action—often galvanized by strong-minded, sensuous women—courses through every page of this gorgeously complex book; but what really draws the reader in is the way Mehwish taste-tests the words she hears, as if they were pieces of fruit, and probes the meaning of human connection in a culture of intolerance, but also of stubborn hope.’ —Cathleen Medwick, Oprah Magazine

‘The characters, the poetry and the philosophical questions she raises are rendered with a power and beauty that make this novel linger in the mind and heart.’ — Kirkus, starred review

‘Uzma Aslam Khan comes from a younger generation of Pakistani authors born and raised in the disrupted decades of the 1980s and 90s... As in her previous work, Aslam Khan deploys several narrators, both male and female… Yet, it is above all, the two female perspectives which make the novel worth reading. Amal offers insights into modern Pakistan, but it is the abstract perspectives offered by her sister, Mehwish, a character who sees the world with her inner eye, tastes its truths and tells them "slant," that are the most original and captivating. We become attuned to her quietly anarchic voice.’ — Times Literary Supplement

‘Khan has boldly tapped uncharted themes in her latest book, The Geometry of God … She carves a sublime story of new and old with contemporary panache (weaving) a complex story whose narrative has a casual energy to it: each voice telling his or her story. Khan is not afraid to say anything.’—Dawn

‘The Geometry of God is a novel that you don’t just read; you listen to it. It can be irreverent, perverse. It can speak with a whole, fluid beauty. It can be curious, wondrous, noncompliant, like the English in Mehwish’s head. Mehwish is the zauq of the book, the sensory pulse, who pulls you into a world of her own making. Expect a simultaneous rush that has funniness, absurdity, shock, tenderness … (and) great sex.’—First City

‘Khan's novel is an eloquent rebuttal to its own character's claim about modern Islam's single-mindedness. Skipping across eras and registers of culture—and showing devotion to pleasures as diverse as Elvis Presley and the Mu'tazilites, Aflatoon (the Arabic name for Plato) and evolutionary biology—it is both an example of and an argument for the essential hybridity of every society.’—Ploughshares

‘Khan explores themes of sex, love, feminism, faith, and family bonds, all set against a backdrop of a country where religious fundamentalism is on the rise. The family in question is led by patriarch Zahoor, a scientist who encourages his granddaughter Amal to assist him in his work. When she finds a rare fossil, it sparks a passion in her to follow in her grandfather's footsteps and become a paleontologist. Khan paints a difficult picture … but it's not one without hope, love, and even triumph.’—Nylon, “Ten Incredible Books by Muslim Women Writers”

‘The Geometry of God becomes that rare creature, a novel where the urgency of the message is matched by the verve of the narrative. The author's intelligence, imprinted on every page like a watermark, blooms into full colour when delving into Mehwish's strange and lovely inner world…The book may be (and probably will be) read by many as a primer to the growth of fundamentalism in the region; to my mind, however, that is the least of what this gorgeous, complex stunner of a novel offers.’ —Niranjana Iyer, Asian Review of Books, republished in Eclectica 

‘Reading The Geometry of God was an experience of total immersion, not because I read it in two days but because of the power of the writing and the voices of its four main characters. I dreamed about the place, the story and the characters both nights after reading, although modern-day Pakistan is a country and culture almost completely alien to me. Uzma Aslam Khan has created exactly what I desire from fiction: to be transported … in an elegant, sensuous and deeply emotional journey.’—BookBrowse

‘(A) novel about transformations in a prose at times eccentric and whimsical but always precise and poetic ... The geometry of God is an apt metaphor, not merely for the blending of science and faith that animates the central conflict but also for the loving spatiotemporal handling of the Pakistani landscape—from the inner courtyards and crowded cities to the Salt Range of the Punjab, as well as the reduction of all this expanse into the eccentric and mystical "boxes" that the blind Mehwish makes for each person she encounters.'—World Literature Today

'Ms. Khan writes with unfailing intelligence and linguistic magic.'—Washington Times