UK author Nadeem Aslam was born in Pakistan in 1966 and moved with his family to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire in England as a teenager. After beginning studies in biochemistry at the University of Manchester, Nadeem left school to pursue a career as a writer.

In 1993 at the age of 27 he published his first novel, Season of the Rainbirds. The book was widely acclaimed, winning the Betty Trask Award and the Author’s Club First Novel Award, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel prize and long-listed for the Booker Prize.

His second novel was a labor of love, taking him 11 years to complete. After its long gestation, Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) won the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and the British Society of Author’s 2005 Encore Prize for best second novel. In an article with Faber & Faber Nadeem spoke more about the book.

Nadeem’s fiction explores Muslim communities at the crossroads of culture, nationality and religion. In 2006 the author published an auto-biographical essay about his experiences growing up within a Muslim family in Granta Magazine.

The author’s next novel (provisionally titled The Wasted Vigil) is set in the Soviet Union, America and Afghanistan and explores the CIA’s involvement in third-world affairs. Nadeem Aslam currently lives and writes in London.