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Riverhead Books

The Return of Faraz Ali

The Return of Faraz Ali

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"Stunning not only on account of the author's talent, of which there is clearly plenty, but also in its humanity." --New York Times Book Review (cover)

Sent back to his birthplace--Lahore's notorious red-light district--to hush up the murder of a girl, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past.

Not since childhood has Faraz returned to the Mohalla, in Lahore's walled inner city, where women continue to pass down the art of courtesan from mother to daughter. 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 girl.

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 winding through the walled city's labyrinthine alleyways chasing 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?

Author: Aamina Ahmad
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 04/05/2022
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9780593330180

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 11/01/2021 pg. 8
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2022
Booklist 02/15/2022 pg. 21
Publishers Weekly 02/28/2022
Library Journal 04/01/2022 pg. 75

About the Author
Aamina Ahmad, a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award. Her short fiction has appeared in One Story, The Southern Review, Ecotone, and elsewhere; she is also the author of a play, The Dishonored. She lives in Berkeley, CA.

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