In the Light of What We Know
Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Desmond Elliott Prize | 2014 | Shortlist |
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction | 2014 | Winner |
About This Book
Zia Haider Rahman's debut novel is a dense, intellectually capacious work about two men — one from Bangladeshi immigrant origins in England, one from old Anglo-American privilege — whose friendship is reconstituted during the financial crisis. Moving between Oxford, New York, Kabul, and Dhaka, the novel addresses mathematics, international law, the Afghanistan war, class, and the limits of self-knowledge. It won the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction in 2014.
About the Author
Zia Haider Rahman is a British novelist born in 1969 in Bangladesh, who came to the United Kingdom as a child and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he read mathematics, and later at Cambridge and Munich. He worked as a mathematician, derivatives trader, and human rights lawyer before becoming a writer. In the Light of What We Know (2014) is his debut novel, a dense, allusive work of ideas exploring mathematics, finance, international law, and the aftermath of the Afghan and Iraq wars through the friendship of two men from very different backgrounds. Read more →
