Inspired by the 1970 Bhola cyclone, in which half a million people perished overnight, The Storm seamlessly interweaves five love stories that, together, chronicle sixty years of Bangladeshi history.
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Shahryar, a recent PhD graduate and the father of nine-year-old Anna, must leave the US when his visa expires. In their last remaining weeks together, we learn his story, beginning in a village on the Bay of Bengal, where a poor fisherman and his wife are preparing to face a storm of historic proportions. Their story intersects with those of a Japanese fighter pilot, a British female doctor stationed in Burma during World War II and a privileged couple in Calcutta who leave everything behind to move to East Pakistan following the Partition of India. The structure of this riveting novel mimics the storm itself—building to a series of revelatory and moving climaxes as it explores the many ways in which families love, betray, honor and sacrifice for one another.
At once grounded in history and fantastically imaginative, The Storm is a sweeping epic in the tradition of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, by an immensely talented new voice in international fiction.
About the Author
ARIF ANWAR was born in Chittagong, Bangladesh, just miles from the Bay of Bengal. He has worked on issues of poverty alleviation for BRAC, one of the world’s largest non-governmental organizations, and on public health for UNICEF Myanmar. Arif has a PhD in education from the University of Toronto. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Si (Sandra) Lian. The Storm is his first novel.
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