BEYOND the FIELDS

The rape of a fifteen-year-old girl living in a remote village of Pakistan drives her twin sister on a dangerous quest for justice. 

Zara and Tara are twins, born to a poor, landless farmer in a remote village of Punjab. During an afternoon spree of games, Tara is kidnapped from the fields and raped. All seems to be resolved after the twin’s parents accept an unexpected marriage proposal for their “dishonoured” daughter. But the nightmare resurfaces with a vengeance when a newspaper clipping emerges, calling the marriage into question. 

The struggle, between Zara’s quest for justice and the village elders’ tenacious grip on a culture that places family honour above all else, hurls the story into the dangers of an urban centre. Determined to rescue her twin, Zara embarks on a harrowing quest for justice, battling keepers of a culture that uphold propriety above all else and braving the unknown dangers of an urban centre.

Set in the early 1980s against the backdrop of martial law and social turmoil, Beyond the Fields is riveting, timely look at profound inequality, traditions that disempower women in our world, and survival as a dance to the beat of a different future.

Fran Lebowitz, a well known literary consultant in Asia has called Beyond the Fields “…absolutely gripping and edifying… a very important read about a very underrepresented population in Western literature”.