Frank Brinkley

Out of Eden

In the Orchard, the Swallows

By

Faber & Faber 139pp £10.99 order from our bookshop

At dawn in the foothills of a mountain range in northern Pakistan, a sickly young man struggles up a valley to an orchard. He is our unnamed narrator, recuperating after fifteen years in prison; each day he revisits his familial home, long since fallen into ruin. He is cared for by Abbas, a retired ‘government poet’ with ‘no more poems to write’, and Abbas’s daughter, Alifa. He has relearned how to write from Alifa; the trek and a brief rest by the orchard in the morning sunshine provide him with the perfect opportunity to record his memories.

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