Product DescriptionA dazzling, operatic debut novel following three generations of a Muslim Indian family confronted with a nation on the brink of change.Working as a consultant for Kamala Harris?s attorney general campaign in Obama-era San Francisco, Seema has constructed a successful life for herself in the West, despite still struggling with her father?s long-ago decision to exile her from the family after she came out as lesbian. Now, nine months pregnant and estranged from the Black father of her unborn son, Seema seeks solace in the company of those she once thought lost to her: her ailing mother, Nafeesa, travelling alone to California from Chennai, and her devoutly religious sister, Tahera, a doctor living in Texas with her husband and children.But instead of a joyful reconciliation anticipating the birth of a child, the events of this fateful week unearth years of betrayal, misunderstanding, and complicated layers of love-a tapestry of emotions as riveting and disparate as the era itself.Told from the point of view of Seema?s child at the moment of his birth, and infused with the poetry of Wordsworth and Keats and verses from the Quran, Radiant Fugitives is a moving tale of a family and a country grappling with acceptance, forgiveness, and enduring love.ReviewBest Book of the Month in Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Time magazine, Oprah Daily?Riveting, wrenching, yet strangely soothing, Radiant Fugitives is a book I both raced through, and returned to, over and over, for Nawaaz Ahmed?s finesse in mapping the tortuous and tortured beats of the heart ?? -Karthika Naïr?Radiant Fugitives is a remarkable achievement ? it is the generosity of spirit that underlies the sketching of each and every character that marks this book as the accomplishment it is.? -Omair Ahmad?Stand back and applaud Ahmed, a writer of vast ambition, who wants nothing less than to reshape the American novel.? -Kamila Shamsie, The New York Times Book Review?A child is born in America, the son of an immigrant South Asian lesbian mother and a Black father. Through that child?s eyes we learn about a family fractured by prejudice and loss; a family making new lives for themselves in the West even as they remain haunted by the religious and cultural expectations of their homeland.? -Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post?Astounding.? -Time?[A] sweeping family saga . . . [Radiant] Fugitives teems with the beautiful specificity of real lives lived, loved, and fought for-a genuinely radiant debut.? -Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly?A complex web of family love and betrayal connects the characters of Nawaaz Ahmed?s rich debut novel Radiant Fugitives . . . The resulting tale is as poetic and multi-layered as the characters themselves.? -Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle?In heady, cultivated prose, Ahmed has penned a multifaceted, multigenerational novel that asks some of our fractured world?s most probing questions . . . Radiant Fugitives reminds us to ?seek sustenance only in the true and truly beautiful (and) to question everything else-rituals, tradition, faith, ties.?? -Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle?I?ve never read a novel like Nawaaz Ahmed?s Radiant Fugitives, and, I kid you not, I've been waiting for this tremendous, complex, moving novel for years, but never expected to receive it ? There is so much of life in this book.? -Anita Felicelli, Electric Literature?Nawaaz Ahmed?s Radiant Fugitives(Counterpoint, August 3) is expansive, graceful, and astounding in its tenderness; it?s a novel that untangles the infinite layers a love can conjure.? -Bryan Washington, Vulture?Guaranteed to entertain and engage.? -Vanity Fair?A stirring, polyphonic novel that taps Eastern and Western literary influences.? -Hamilton Cain, Oprah Daily?This rich, unafraid debut novel offers a masterclass in perspective-taking and will leave readers feeling all the things . . . Ahmed?s impressive insight into his characters? lives is lifted up