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Karachi Vice

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Member Reviews

Samira Sackle's Karachi Vice is one of those books one wants to buy in bulk and hand out to friends, relatives, mere acquaintances. To write Karachi Vice, Sackle (whose parents migrated from Pakistan to the UK and who still has a great many family members living in Pakistan) shadowed a group of five individuals.

• Parveen, a female activist who has chosen not to marry so she can focus her life on making change
• Safdar, an ambulance driver for a non-profit organization that provides low-cost ambulance service for all except the very rich
• Zille, a crime reporter and news personality who has connections on every side of the many struggles going on in Pakistan
• Janat, a young woman who still dreams of finishing her education and who lives in a village on the outskirts of Karachi that is being systematically destroyed to make room for high-end housing developments
• Siraj, who works for a nonprofit that maps areas ignored by the powers that be in order to document land possession, the need for electricity and sanitation services, etc.

This isn't a representative cross-section of Karachi's population, and Shackle made that choice deliberately. She wanted to focus on individuals who were representative of the experiences of many of the city's residents, but who, in one way or another, had found ways of pushing back and trying to make change.

Shackle is an adept writer, and her portraits of these individuals read as smoothly and engagingly as the best fiction. One doesn't leave the book with a systematic understanding of all the various forces and issues in Karachi, but one does get a very real sense of what it is like to try to make change in an area where just staying alive is a full-time challenge.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are two very different nations, but their histories have overlapped a great deal. The Taliban originated from within Pakistani security forces and shapes much of life in both nations. In Afghanistan, the Taliban's power is rising; in Pakistan it has receded somewhat. Both nations are facing cultural implosions resulting from conflicts in world views and social norms. Women in both nations have been forced into a three steps forward, two steps back dance as they work toward self-determination—and that dance is too often two steps forward and three steps back. So, with reasonable caveats, I think it's appropriate to read Karachi Vice as a book that can teach us about life in both nations.

If you want to go beyond the sporadic, hyper-focused, echoing sound chamber of calamity that describes much of the news coverage of this region, Karachi Vice is an excellent place to start.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher; the opinions are my own.

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In “Karachi Vice,” Shamira Shackle tells the stories of several residents of the ever-growing and sprawling Karachi. And as readers come to intimately know these women and men over the course of a few hundred pages, they, in turn, come to better know Karachi, the various forces that both divide it and rule it, and the millions caught in the middle. Between descriptions of battles in the street between an almost bewildering away of factions, barely visible boundaries between organized crime and the ruling political parties, bombings by insurgent groups, increasing scarcity of basics like water that is often exacerbated for the enrichment of an already-comfortable few, plus a daily other stresses, Shackle makes the city come vividly and at times painfully alive, making for a thrilling and gripping glimpse into this city. Not to mention a read that is also packed almost to bursting with frustrations and tragedy that often made this reader’s gut clench. However, through the women and men that she has chosen to highlight Shackle also makes sure to shine light upon the optimism and tenacity that help keep daily life going out in Karachi’s streets. The result is a surprising undercurrent of hope that is always present if a bit more obscured at times than others.

If the gushing description above hasn’t already made things clear, then allow me to clarify things by saying that this was very well done. And not just specifically as a book devoted to Pakistan’s largest city, but just overall it’s a great read that has so effectively shattered my personal non-fiction slump that I will be more than happy to recommend it without a second thought.

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