THE WANDERING FALCON

Piter Marek narrates Jamil Ahmad’s collection of loosely connected stories set in the desert regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan known as “Pakistan’s tribal badlands.” In the first of nine chapters, the boy who becomes Tor Baz, “The Wandering Falcon,” sees his father shoot his mother and witnesses his father’s stoning by the elders of his tribe. As the stories unfold, listeners meet nomads making annual pilgrimages to water their herds and learn of their harsh existence and harsher penalties for transgressions as well as their volatile responses to border closings. From mad mullahs to fathers who sell their daughters, Marek’s reading is as spare and stark as Ahmad’s prose, offering insights into tribal conflicts and customs that most Westerners know little about. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2012]