Hasan is 11 years old. He loves cricket, pomegranates, his artistic mother, his etymologically obsessed father and his neighbour Zehra. One morning, while lazing on the roof, Hasan watches a young boy fall to his death. Soon after, Hasan's idyllic, sheltered family life is shattered when his beloved uncle Salman, a dissenting politician, is arrested and charged with treason. Set in a land ruled by an oppressive military regime, this eloquent, charming and quietly political novel vividly recreates the confusing world of a young boy on the edge of adulthood.