Feryal Ali Gauhar's new novel is an unmitigated tale of horror – bestial fact stacked upon bestial fact, evoking revulsion and nausea. The book's jacket claims that the work powerfully reveals the tragedy of Afghanistan, the terrible madness of war. But No Space for Further Burials never reaches that broader bank, staying caught instead in the narrow sewer it describes.
Although the book's publisher gives only sketchy details about the author, Gauhar is well-known enough in her multiple roles as a UN goodwill ambassador, a TV actress, and as the author of the 2002 The Scent of Wet Earth in August, which explored Tibbi Galli (Lahore's red-light area) and the abuse of women. In No Space for Further Burials, she moves away from both Pakistan and gender issues, instead basing her novel in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Gauhar's central figure is a US Army soldier who, having strayed from his base, is captured, and suddenly finds himself shoved into in a mental asylum along with mentally deranged, physically crippled and diseased inmates. Inside the walls of the asylum he is known as 'Firangi'. The asylum, once funded by the government and serviced by foreign doctors, has now been abandoned to itself, with only the inmates/captives remaining behind, kept forcibly by the asylum's caretaker and his wife. There are several mysteries here: why the caretaker continues to hold these people here; why he and his wife do not turn the inmates free, and escape themselves; where the group's food comes from, and why they choose to slowly starve rather than leave the asylum's horrific confines. Perhaps Gauhar feels no need to explain these issues, preferring instead to allow them to build into her endless vortex of sordidness.
In the midst of all this, there are some references to the outside world. Soldiers, who are interchangeable with looters and rebels (the distinction is not explained at any length), come regularly to plunder the asylum for whatever it might yield. There are some brief snapshots of Firangi's earlier life in his military base, as well as occasional references to the possible futility of the American military attempt to bring democracy and liberation to a country such as Afghanistan. Gauhar tries to weave in bits of Afghan history, as well as that of the Great Depression of 1930s America. Where the book fails is in linking these issues together; in broadening the peephole show to take in the larger world; in balancing the horror with the human element that would let the reader relate to the characters or their squalid situation.