Philip Hensher's husband, Zaved Mahmood, was born in late 1970 in Dacca, then a regional capital of Pakistan. In the months following his birth, the eastern part of the country split from the western side in a war of independence of savage violence. In December 1971, after the deaths of millions of innocent victims in the civil war, a new country was declared: Bangla Desh, the Home of the Bengalis.
Scenes From Early Life is the story of one upper-middle-class Bengali family, told in the form of a memoir, narrated by Zaved. It is an autobiography, a novel and, in part, a history of one of the most ferocious of twentieth-century civil wars.
