Nobody Killed Her By Sabyn Javeri HarperCollins, India ISBN: 978-9352641550 431pp.

When I put the book down, the first thing that came to my mind was that Sabyn Javeri’s debut novel Nobody Killed Her will garner a lot of attention, among Pakistani readers in particular, with the plot tapping into real-life events.

The story is about the ambitious, young, uneducated Nazneen Khan (Nazo) who is accused of assassinating Rani Shah, and begins with Nazo’s first impressions of the Western-educated, liberal-viewed Rani who eventually becomes the country’s first female prime minister. The story then goes on a rollercoaster ride through events showing the reader the glaring class difference that exists in society.

Nazo loves Rani but is not blind to her faults; neither is she taken in by the wealth and extravagance around her. Her aim in life is clear: to help Rani in every way — to win elections, to end the army general’s 10-year rule, to bring prosperity to the country, and most of all, to bring in laws that empower women.

A novel with a plot that hints strongly at true events from Pakistan’s recent history

She has no scruples whatsoever and will go to any lengths to get what she wants, from eavesdropping on her hero to misusing her position — “as Woman Friday she did everything from being her typist to ironing her clothes to keeping her diary and taking care of her children” — to threatening, blackmailing, misappropriating funds, to impersonating Rani herself and even sleeping with the prime minister’s husband, and to planning and conspiring to assassinate the general.

Hopscotching back and forth in time, this courtroom battle zips along at a great pace weaving in a concoction of events that are all too familiar. Through her tale of political machinations, intrigue, corruption, greed, sex, rape, betrayal, military misadventure, terrorism, and jihad, Javeri attempts to explore power relations and reveals the various human characteristics of deceit, courage, devotion, adulation, etc.

Yet there is more that Javeri attempts to say in between the lines that will resonate with female readers this side of the region. According to Javeri, the modern woman is expected to be some kind of superhero, juggling work, home, motherhood, career, ageing parents, etc. Wanting to be just a homemaker is considered a crime. It is this expectation requiring women to be perfect that Javeri tries to capture through her fictional lens.

As with courtroom trials, the suspense is kept alive through unexpected twists, intrigue, and moral dilemmas. Despite her disclaimer that all incidents and characters in the book are a figment of her imagination, readers will find her alluding to events that actually happened in Pakistan: Mukhtaran Mai’s gang rape; Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming, her wedding to Asif Ali Zardari, her assassination, and her brother Shahnawaz Bhutto’s mysterious death; the attack on young Malala Yousafzai; General Ziaul Haq’s assassination, etc.

A self-proclaimed voracious and ferocious reader, Javeri read up on female leaders from all over the world, looking at their personal and public lives in order to weave their leadership qualities into her characters. One leader in particular — Benazir — seems to hold her attention the longest and similarities between Zardari and Benazir, and Balgodi and Rani are unmistakable.

Javeri is at her wicked best with the introduction of every new character that slips into the story, and there are many. For example, there is Riaz who is so “thin he could have been a reed” and Begum Shah’s eyes that are “the master of their own will; one fixed on you while the other roamed freely.” She also has a gift for adding details to her narrative: “Your frizzy hair is as rebellious as your nature”; “My country was colourful once, now it was a sea of black. Black burqas, black beards, black burnt-down buildings, pock-marked with bullets...”

Interestingly, Javeri leaves it to her readers to decide whether they want Rani or Nazo to be the real heroine of the story. There is a continuous tussle between the two to snatch the title. There are sides to take and it is one person’s world view against the other. In the end the choice is left to the reader.

The style of the second person alternating as the first person, according to Javeri, gives readers the freedom to take on the persona of Rani when Nazo addresses her as “you”. Javeri also wanted to experiment with the idea of an unreliable narrator, such as the middle-aged literature professor Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, because such experimentation has not been done much in subcontinental literature. The idea was not to put out a straightforward story, but to create a narrative in which the reader was heavily involved. Also, more than it being a political saga, the author intended it to be more about the relationship between two women, and a mediation on the idea of what the love of power does to the power of love.

The reviewer is a freelance journalist

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 26th, 2017