Pakistan, a land with a long and storied history, is experiencing a tumultuous present. As its population expands to surpass two hundred million, its infrastructure is faltering and rampant unemployment and power outages have become the norm. The military controls much of the nation, and at the same time as the public educational system has found itself lacking needed resources, a brand of conservative and radical Islam has developed that is now a prominent political force. And yet the hope and resilience of the Pakistanis remain as strong as ever, promising the possibility of a calmer tomorrow. Hasnain Kazim, a correspondent for the current-affairs magazine Der Spiegel and the son of Indo-Pakistani immigrants to Germany, explores all of this and more in a riveting account of his four years living in and reporting from the region.

As Kazim and his wife arrived in Islamabad in 2009, they found the country of his parents’ birth riven with contradictions: a nuclear power with a tremendous gulf between the rich and poor, Pakistan has experienced a series of natural and manmade disasters in recent years alongside turbulent periods of economic growth and stagnation. What keeps the people of this Islamic society going? What hopes do they hold for the future? As Kazim spoke with Pakistanis at every level of society and of all political persuasions in search of answers to these questions, he discovered a much more complex country than the headlines of violence and extremism would suggest. Told from a sensitive and sympathetic insider’s perspective, Inside Pakistan pulls back the curtain on a section of the world that promises to play an ever more important role in years to come.

Hasnain Kazim is a journalist and writer based in Germany.