In the Orchard, the Swallows

Peter Hobbs

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571279296
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

In the foothills of a mountain range in northern Pakistan is a beautiful orchard. Swallows wheel and dive silently over the branches, and the scent of jasmine threads through the air. Pomegranates hang heavy, their skins darkening to a deep crimson. Neglected now, the trees are beginning to grow wild, their fruit left to spoil on the branches.

Many miles away, a frail young man is flung out of prison gates. Looking up, scanning the horizon for swallows in flight, he stumbles and collapses in the roadside dust. His ravaged body tells the story of fifteen years of brutality.

Just one image has held and sustained him through the dark times - the thought of the young girl who had left him dumbstruck with wonder all those years ago, whose eyes were lit up with life.
A tale of tenderness in the face of great and corrupt power, In The Orchard, The Swallows is a heartbreaking novel written in prose of exquisite stillness and beauty

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Epigraph
• The Orchard
• Abbas
• Homecoming
• The Orchard
• The Market
• The Village
• The Market
• The Wedding
• The Orchard
• Your Father
• I Am a Fool
• The Orchard
• The Garden
• The Prison
• The Prison
• The Notebook 
• The Swallows
• The Orchard
• The Waterfall
• The Prison
• Abbas
• The Prison
• The Orchard
• I Am Afraid
• The Orchard
• My Father
• The Village
• The Garden
• The Orchard
• The Garden
• The Orchard
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright