Maps For Lost Lovers Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Honor Killings and our BookBrowse Review of Maps For Lost Lovers.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

“Aslam’s . . . prose is stylistically dazzling, full of poetic, richly descriptive and tender passages. . . . His characters’ inner lives are explored in-depth, flaws and all. . . . A novel as affecting as it is provocative.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are designed to enliven your group’s discussion of Maps for Lost Lovers, the spellbinding and often heart-wrenching new novel by the Pakistani-English writer Nadeem Aslam. At once a story of romantic longing and sexual repression; a portrait of a community of Asian immigrants surreally isolated in rural England; and a shocking yet empathetic foray into the mind–and heart–of religious extremism, Maps for Lost Lovers transplants themes as timeless as those found in Romeo and Juliet into the religious and ethnic minefields of modernity.


FOR DISCUSSION

1. Early in the novel, Shamas remembers a visitor from Pakistan who was so impressed by England’s affluence that he imagined the Queen venturing forth in disguise to discover the desires of her subjects. How does one reconcile this attitude with the characters’ other feelings about England?
   


2. Maps for Lost Lovers is fraught with images of nature: Jugnu’s prized moths and butterflies, the peacocks that invade his house after his and Chanda’s disappearance, the lilacs used to entice fish, the flock of Indian rose-ringed parakeets that mysteriously appear in English gardens. How does Aslam use these images to evoke mood, explore his characters’ psychology, and even advance his plot? Is there a difference in the way he treats the natural elements of England and Asia? Which seems more “natural”?
   


3. Many of Aslam’s characters, Kaukab chief among them, have rejected English culture and manners, and even the English language. But some of them feel that it is England that has rejected them: “We are stranded in a foreign country where no one likes us” [p. 278]. Does Aslam give the reader any evidence to support this claim? Are his Asian characters only responding to English racism, or does the book describe a more nuanced interaction between different kinds of small-mindedness and mistrust?
   

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.