Reisen um die Welt

Vorerst: UPC kann keine Internet-Verbindung mehr herstellen und hat mir mittlerweile selbst den Vertragsrücktritt angeboten. Schon traurig - aber eben nicht zu ändern.

Nach Burma - wo es mir sehr gefallen hat - bin ich nach Griechenland und jetzt nach Pakistan gereist. Zeit zum Lesen hatte ich ohne Internet ja genug:

Zuerst ging es nach Griechenland:

 

Panos KARNEZIS
The Birthday Party

 

Product Description: It is the summer of 1975. Marco Timoleon, an Onassis-like tycoon, is nearing the end of his life. When he finds out his troubled daughter is pregnant by a man he doesn't approve of, he throws a birthday party for her on his private island, secretly intending to persuade her to terminate the pregnancy. A doctor stands by to perform the operation on the spot.

The story of this fateful party and the lives it affects is a brilliant modern fable, a rags-to-riches tale with no certainty of a happily-ever-after ending.

 

Nach Griechenland bin ich mit diesem Buch nach Pakistan weitergereist:

 

Mohammed HANIF

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

Book Description: The patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments are looking for a miracle, and Alice Bhatti is looking for a job. The story begins with Alice's interview for the position of junior nurse, grade 4. Alice is no ordinary applicant. It is only a few weeks since her release from Borstal. She has returned to her childhood home in the French Colony, where her father continues his work as chief janitor and part-time healer. It seems she has inherited his gift. With the implementation of the working nurse's manual, a bit of inspired improvisation and some help from Lord Yassoo (Jesus), Alice brings succour to the thousands of patients littering the hospital's corridors and concrete courtyards - provoking the jealousies of her fellow nurses, and firing the imaginations of the male staff in the process. Not least young Noor, a former cellmate, now notary at the hospital; nor Teddy Bunt, amateur bodybuilder and apprentice to the nefarious 'Gentleman Squad' of the Karachi police. It seems Alice's troubles are far from over. A Christian in an Islamic world, caught in the red tape of hospital bureaucracy and trapped by the strict caste system, torn between her duty to her patients, to her husband and to her father, Alice finds that her new life is built on foundations as unstable as those of her new home. When a suspect goes missing on his watch, Teddy plunges them both into a danger that perhaps not even a miracle can save them from. But then again, Alice Bhatti is no ordinary nurse…Filled with wit, colour and pathos, "Our Lady of Alice Bhatti" is a glorious story of second chances, thwarted ambitions and love in unlikely places, set in the febrile streets of downtown Karachi. It is the remarkable new novel from the author of "A Case of Exploding Mangoes".