Pepsi is a smart street kid in an unnamed South American country – an orphan of circumstance, whose mother is dead and whose father, a famous politician, has disowned him. At his side is Maria, a girl kidnapped from her real family who has found in Pepsi a true ‘brother’. In this hard-hitting yet fantastic tale, Pepsi’s mission is to escape the sadistic Caddy, a policeman in cahoots with his father, whose one aim is to exterminate him, and to return Maria to her home – the rubbish-tip township she calls ‘Heaven’.

Zameenzad portrays the lives of social outcasts, loners, losers, the deprived and the dispossessed. He aims to give voice to the voiceless, and make visible the invisible. In this remarkable novel, the children’s zest for life and the beauty of the world around them ensure that their dramatic and poetic story, while dealing with the appalling reality of street children’s lives, is uplifting to the spirit.