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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

THE RETURN OF FARAZ ALI

Aamina Ahmad

Sent back to his birthplace – Lahore's notorious red-light district – to hush up the murder of a child prostitute, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past.
Not since childhood has Faraz returned to the Mohalla, Lahore's infamous walled inner city, where women still pass down the profession of courtesan to their daughters. But he still remembers the day he was abducted from the home he shared with his mother and sister there, at the direction of his powerful father, who wanted to give him a chance at a respectable life. Now Wajid, once more dictating his fate from afar, has sent Faraz back to Lahore, installing him as head of the Mohalla police station and charging him with a mission: to cover up the violent death of a young kanjari.

It should be a simple assignment to carry out in a marginalized community, but for the first time in his career, Faraz finds himself unable to follow orders. As the city assails him with a jumble of memories, he cannot stop asking questions or chasing down the walled city's labyrinthine alleyways for the secrets—his family's and his own—that risk shattering his precariously constructed existence.

Profoundly intimate and propulsive, The Return of Faraz Ali is a spellbindingly assured first novel that poses a timeless question: Whom do we choose to protect, and at what price?

Aamina Ahmad grew up in London and visited Pakistan often with her father, an airline pilot. A Stegner Fellow, she holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Award. Her short fiction has appeared in One Story, The Southern Review, and other journals. She teaches writing at San Jose State.
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Published 2022-04-01 by Riverhead

Comments

Westland

“Stunning not only on account of the author's talent, of which there is clearly plenty, but also in its humanity. The fullness of the characters and their intersecting lives make this far more than a murder mystery Ahmad's compassion, her deep care for the psychological and emotional nuances of her characters, never wavers, no matter how monstrous or self-interested or defeated they become. It extends through generations and transformations of place, all the way to a devastating final chapter, fully human, fully engaged with what makes us human.” Read more...

Klidarithmos

“This is a nuanced, many-faceted story, fraught with complex interrelations of ethnicity, class and politics, of a man trying to unlock the secrets of his past so that he might discover who he is in the present. A first-rate literary mystery with the emphasis on literary.”

House Productions

Hachette UK

“This novel has everything a reader could ask for: a sizzling, noirlike plot; political intrigue juxtaposed with a rich intergenerational family saga; capacious, conflicted characters, including women who may be marginalized by society but are masters of their own narratives; and sublime sentences. A debut novelist, Ahmad manages this complexity seamlessly. A feat of storytelling not to be missed.”