Description
Book SynopsisThrough the use of a roman-à-clef, the author is able to create compelling caricatures that take on a life of their own. - Guardian
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Anarchic, erudite and rollicking, with a septuagenarian protagonist like no other, The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack is a joyride of a story set against a kaleidoscopic portrait of one of the world's most vibrant cities.
Abdullah, bachelor and scion of a once prominent family, awakes on the morning of his seventieth birthday and considers launching himself over the balcony. Having spent years attempting to compile a 'mythopoetic legacy' of his beloved Karachi, the cosmopolitan heart of Pakistan, Abdullah has lost his zeal.
A surprise invitation for a night out from his old friend Felix Pinto snaps Abdullah out of his funk, and saddles him with a ward - Pinto's adolescent grandson Bosco. As Abdullah plays mentor to Bosco, he also attracts the romantic attentions of Jugnu, an enigmatic siren with links to the mob. All the while Abdullah's brothers' plot to evict him from the family estate. Now he must to try to save his home - or face losing his last connection to his familial past.
Trade ReviewWhat a fun, fantastic, original thing this is. -- Akhil Sharma
Naqvi colours in a vibrant portrait of the sprawling port city. * Wall Street Journal *
Through the use of a roman-à-clef, the author is able to create compelling caricatures that take on a life of their own. * Guardian *
H.M. Naqvi is a superb stylist and writes like a poet. With careful attention to details and with enormous patience he presents a world that is at once fascinating and familiar.
The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack is completely original in form and sensibility. -- Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award
A guide, a gourmand, an impassioned septuagenarian full to bursting with a love of jazz, poetry, history, his beloved hometown - H.M. Naqvi's remarkable Cossack is the Pakistani Falstaff, the Tristram Shandy of "Currachee," spinning yarns inside yarns, allusive, affirming and grandly comic. But
The Selected Works also asks: what might an old man owe a brother, a lover, a ward? And in answering that, becomes moving. -- Joshua Ferris
Once a decade a voice emerges in English that performs a vernacular sonic boom: hearing it on the page, you instantly realize people had been speaking this way for a while, the novel just had not caught up. It happened with Salman Rushdie's
Midnight's Children and Peter Carey's
Illywhacker and with Zadie Smith's
White Teeth, Junot Diaz's
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Chimamanda Adichie's
Americanah. With this noisy, rambunctious, hilarious novel, HM Naqvi joins their ranks. He has brought a brand new sound into the novel in English. It is riveting and robust, unlike anything I've ever read. You can almost hear sound waves clap hands in gratitude as the novel catches up with the world again. -- John Freeman
An uproariously funny, poignant family saga...Touching on the metaphysical, the moral and the absurd, this bawdy epic is a fresh-voiced testament to place, family and the importance of loyalty. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
Naqvi here delivers his promised "big, bad comic epic." This exuberant account, featuring a protagonist as unlikely as he is appealing, is a true pleasure for its language and discourses on life, death, and what's in between. * Booklist (starred review) *
A love story, a caper, a family dust-up, a farce - prizewinning Pakistani writer Naqvi's second novel offers all these things, yet they matter less than its lovingly evoked milieu, the uniquely vibrant neighbourhoods and characters, culture, history, architecture, and aromas of the city. * Kirkus Reviews *
