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In the City by the Sea

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About this listen

 Bloomsbury presents In the City by the Sea by Kamila Shamsie, read by Mikhail Sen.

For every bullet shot by an oppressor there springs to life a star

Hasan lives an idyllic childhood of abundance: of pomegranates and cricket and ostensible serenity. This illusory veneer of calm is shattered when his beloved uncle Salman, a dissenting politician in a land shackled by a militaristic regime, is charged with treason, under possible penalty of death.

Written with melancholic lyrical beauty and urgency, In the City by the Sea examines the loss of childhood innocence under political oppression.©2025 Kamila Shamsie (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Genre Fiction Political World Literature

Critic reviews

Full of fun, longing and wit … a debut of spirit and imagination, loaded with intelligent charm (Ali Smith)
Lively, playful, provocative (Anita Desai)
Utterly enchanting (Deborah Moggach)
All stars
Most relevant
As always - beautifully written. However unlike Burnt Shadows the storyline was less complex and interesting. There is good insight into the personal and political climate and overall I found it a sad story, though with lovely and thought provoking metaphors.

A mixture of personal and political threads formulate this story

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