The End of Innocence

by Moni Mohsin (Editor)

1971: While a savage civil war rages in East Pakistan, a thousand miles away in West Pakistan, in the safe, cosy village of Sabzbagh, life appears to continue undisturbed. An ancient preoccupation with family honour and social propriety dominates the lives of peasants and landed gentry alike. It is here, at her family estate in Sabzbagh, that naive, privileged nine-year-old Laila is spending her winter vacation. Laila's world is peopled by adults—progressive parents, a protective ayah, and an imperious, old-fashioned grandmother. Adored and indulged though she is, Laila feels excluded from this enigmatic grown-up world. Much like the young heroes of her favourite Enid Blyton adventures, she yearns for a slice of the action, and with a best friend by her side. This friend is Rani—the spirited teenage granddaughter of a family servant. Rani, however, is hurtling into a forbidden love affair, and when she becomes pregnant, she has no one to turn to but Laila. Eager but artless, Laila plunges headlong into helping Rani. As she flounders in an adult world she does not understand, Laila unwittingly unleashes a catastrophe. This is the story of a guileless relationship between two girls; and as the larger political reality unfolds tragically in the background, so politics is played with Rani. The End of Innocence is a coming-of-age story not just of two children, but of a country and an ideology.

368 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 6, 2006

About the author

Mohsin grew up in Lahore, and describes herself as being from a family of "educated, westernised people". When General Zia ul-Haq came to power in a coup in 1977, her family began to feel less comfortable in the new, religious Pakistan, where political repression against nonconformists became routine, but remained in Lahore. Mohsin left Pakistan at 16 to study at a boarding school in England, and later attended Cambridge University, where she studied anthropology and archaeology. Afterward she returned to Pakistan, where she founded the country's first nature magazine. After General Zia's death she moved more decisively into the public sphere, working for the independent "Friday Times", where she rose to the ranks of features editor.

Her books include "The End of Innocence", her debut novel '"Tender Hooks" AKA "Duty Free", and "The Diary of a Social Butterfly". Her writing has also appeared in "The Times", "The Guardian", the "Washington Post", "Prospect", "The Nation", and other publications.

She now divides her time between Lahore and London, where she lives with her husband and two children. Her sister, Jugnu Mohsin, is the publisher of "The Friday Times", an independent Pakistani weekly.[1]