"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
Winner of the inaugural DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, H.M. Naqvi
follows his critically-lauded debut Home Boy with The
Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack, an enthralling novel about one
unforgettable and gloriously unaccomplished man, his impending death, and the
history and life of his bustling, shape-shifting city.
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.
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.
