'You cannot force two nations to live together any more than you can force two people,' he says quietly.

Fatima smiles, feeling a slight thrill of victory. 'Divorce.'

'Pakistan.'

Two intense, inflexible personalities duel over a question that will decide the fate of millions: one nation-or two?

Jinnah, the consummate, ruthlessly analytical gentleman in a tailored suit, starts out sceptical of those who come to his door proposing a 'Land of the Pure', but ends up founding exactly such a country. Gandhi, the religious visionary in homespun khadi, experiments with Truth in his quest for one India-only to witness, in anguish, the bloody birth of two nations.

The Map and the Scissors is a novel about the epic origin story of modern South Asia, brought to life by two London-educated lawyers, mirror-image rivals who dreamt the same dream of freedom-in catastrophically incompatible ways.