The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad by John R. Schmidt

The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad
John R. Schmidt
On Sale: October 30, 2012
Picador
Current Affairs / Politics

For a review copy (US and Canada only) or to schedule an interview with John R. Schmidt, please email gabrielle.gantz [at] picadorusa.com

PRAISE FOR THE UNRAVELING
“Pakistan is where all the headaches of the twenty-first century come together. In The Unraveling, John R. Schmidt draws upon his firsthand experience as a diplomat in that nation to explain why. This is a book filled with useful information, objectively presented and offered at precisely the right time.”—Madeleine K. Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, 1997–2001

“John R. Schmidt pulls no punches in this timely book. He makes a powerful case that Pakistan’s ‘feudal political class’ is that deserving but conflicted country’s worst enemy. He is just as frank in his critique of U.S. policy. His motive is entirely constructive: he administers a bracing and necessary dose of tough love to one of the most important and troubled interstate relations on earth.”—Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution

“This thought-provoking, evenhanded, and sobering history is a ‘cautionary tale’ about the choices Pakistan’s ruling classes have made that threaten to bring it to the brink of destruction.”—Publishers Weekly

“A rare lucid take on the turmoil in Pakistan . . . [Schmidt] offers a cogent analysis of the havoc caused by a nettlesome concoction of feudal lords, strong military, American pressure and radical Islamist factions all vying for dominance . . . A deeply thoughtful study geared for the lay reader.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[Schmidt] provides here a succinct history of Pakistan and examines, in highly readable and informative prose, how the country became a haven for jihadist groups . . . Because of Schmidt’s years of inside foreign policy experience, his book contains distinct details and observations that outsiders writing cannot offer. Recommended to all serious readers interested in a policymaker’s perspective.”—Library Journal

ABOUT THE UNRAVELING
How did a nation founded as a homeland for South Asian Muslims become a haven for Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups? In this groundbreaking work, former U.S. diplomat John R. Schmidt, who served in Pakistan in the years leading up to 9/11, takes a detailed look at the country’s relationship with radical Islam. The Unraveling is the clearest account yet of the complex, dangerous relationship between the leaders of Pakistan and jihadist groups—and how the rulers’ decisions have led their nation to the brink of disaster and put the world at great risk.

ABOUT JOHN R. SCHMIDT
John R. Schmidt teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He served in the State Department during a thirty-year service career, including as political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad in the years leading up to 9/11.

MORE INFORMATION
Cover image for download
Panel discussion with John R. Schmidt on India and Pakistan (C-Span)

Partitions: A Novel by Amit Majmudar

Partitions: A Novel
Amit Majmudar
On Sale: July 3, 2012
Paperback
Fiction: Historical, Literary

ABOUT PARTITIONS
As India is rent into two nations with the creation of Pakistan, communal violence breaks out on both sides of the new border and streaming hordes of refugees flee from blood and chaos.

At an overrun train station, Shankar and Kenshav, twin Hindu boys, lose sight of their mother and go in search of her. A young Sikh girl, Simran Kaur, has run away from her father who would rather poison her than see her defiled. And Ibrahim Masud, an elderly Muslim doctor, limps toward the new Muslim state of Pakistan, rediscovering on the way his role as a healer. A dramatic, luminous story of families and nations broken and formed, Partitions, “written with piercing beauty, alive with moral passion and sorrowful insight, [is] a rueful masterpiece” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amit Majmudar is a diagnostic nuclear radiologist and an award-winning poet whose work has been featured in The Best American Poetry 2007. His first poetry collection, 0°, 0°, was published in 2009, and a novella, Azazel, was serialized in The Kenyon Review. Partitions is his first full-length novel. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

PRAISE FOR PARTITIONS
“Partitions is a worldly meditation on the violence that occurs because of the necessary yet artificial partitions between individuals…. Partitions eloquently shares its author’s human insights.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“In his magnificent first novel, Majmudar embodies the terrible days following the partition of India and Pakistan in the stories of four refugees from sectarian violence . . . Written with piercing beauty, alive with moral passion and sorrowful insight—a rueful masterpiece.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“That this significantly poignant, but never maudlin fictional excursion into relatively recent Asian history is the author’s first novel is relevant to mention only because of its nimble use of history.”—Booklist, Starred Review

“This first-time novelist has helped us to travel that brief but crucial distance, from words on the page to dreams in our minds and hearts, and made this bitter, brutal time somehow reachable.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered

More Information
Partitions on the Picador website
Author photo for download
Cover image for download
A conversation with Amit Majmudar for free use

For a review copy, please contact Gabrielle.Gantz@picadorusa.com

Walking with the Comrades by Arundhati Roy

Walking with the Comrades
Arundhati Roy
Penguin Paperback
On Sale: October 25, 2011
This title is available on Netgalley

Praise for WALKING WITH THE COMRADES
“Informed, impassioned, at times strident, and fleet and fascinating when describing life on the ground among the rebels, Roy’s prose will both rouse and ruffle.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A bell-clear exposé of corporate greed and governmental malfeasance that should—if there is any justice in the world—provoke a furious backlash in the name of human dignity.” —Kirkus

. . .

Deep in the forests, under the pretenses of battling Maoist guerrillas, the Indian government is waging a vicious total war against its own citizens. Allied with the mining and banking conglomerates eager to exploit the rare minerals buried in tribal lands, government soldiers are daily committing unspeakable atrocities, undocumented by a weak domestic press and unnoticed by an indifferent world.

In WALKING WITH THE COMRADES, a Penguin Paperback Original on sale October 25, 2011, acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy, the author of The God of Small Things and a firebrand investigative journalist, documents this secret war.

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 1997. Since then she has produced numerous works of political commentary and investigative journalism including The Algebra of Infinite Justice, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, and Listening to Grasshoppers. A collection of her interviews, The Shape of Beasts, was published in 2008.

For More Information
Press release for download
Cover image for download
Author photo for download
Excerpt: Available upon publication date

To request a review copy, email: gabrielle.gantz [at] us.penguingroup.com