Chef, by Jaspreet Singh

I picked up this donated “advance reading copy” of this book because its cover stated that it was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Prize for Best Book. I can see why. Set primarily in Kashmir, the disputed mountainous border between Pakistan and India, it chronicles the story of Kirpal Singh, known as Kip, a young Sikh who is the son of an Indian major whose plane crashed and disappeared into a crevasse in the glacier at 20,000 feet. Against his mother’s wishes, he also joins the army and is posted to the Indian side, “the more beautiful side” of Kashmir, where he apprentices to the chef who serves the General recently made governor of the state. Told in flashbacks fourteen years later, as Kip returns at the governor’s request to prepare the wedding feast for his daughter, who he last knew as a child, it is a reflection on that on-going conflict and the sacrifices and moral conflicts that in engendered. 246 pp.