Pakistan Fiction

A stunning new work from universally acclaimed Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose debut short story collection won the Story Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026: Town & Country, Bustle, AARP...

Mano Majra is a place, Khushwant Singh tells us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the 'ghost train' arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of...

From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the boldly imagined tale of a poor boy’s quest for wealth and love. His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world’s pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in...

National Book Award Finalist Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize One of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD “This exquisite debut wrestles with gender, siblinghood, family, and what it means to be Muslim in America—all through the lens of love.”—Time “Haunting . . . a knife-sharp story of self-discovery.”—People WINNER OF THE CAROL SHIELDS...

A compellingly heartbreaking debut novel about the echoes of Partition and four friends whose dark secrets lead to a life-changing night that comes back to haunt them decades later. One night. Four friends. Countless secrets. 1964. Karachi, Pakistan. Rozeena is running out of time. She'll lose...

Mona has almost everything: money, friends, social status...everything except for freedom. Languishing in her golden cage, she craves a sense of belonging. Desperate for emotional release, she turns to a friend who introduces her to a world of glitter, glamour, covert affairs and drugs. There she meets Ali, a physically and emotionally wounded man, years younger than her.

In eight unflinching and stunningly crafted stories, Kanza Javed unspools the lives of characters desperately trying to forge a path for themselves on the margins of society.

The New York Times bestseller from the author of If I Stay “Heartwrenching…If you are ready to be emotionally wrecked yet again, you are in luck.” – Hypable A fateful accident draws three strangers together over the course of a single day: Freya who has lost her voice while...

This Very Short Introduction looks at Pakistan as one of the two nation-states of the Indian subcontinent that emerged in 1947. Pippa Virdee reaches into the ancient past to demonstrate the influence of trajectories of human settlement and civilization on Pakistan's contemporary political arena, and shows how the longer continuities between the land and its peoples are as important as the short-term changes in the political landscape. She considers Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, everyday life, popular culture, languages and literature.

Before the Soviet invasion of 1980, Enjeela Ahmadi remembers her home - Kabul, Afghanistan - as peaceful, prosperous, and filled with people from all walks of life. But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.

Dr. Aisha Khan returns from the dead, but her miracle is a declaration of war. After two years lost and presumed dead, her joyful reunion with her devout Muslim family in Karachi, Pakistan, is built on a dangerous secret. While her father praises Allah for her miraculous return, Aisha knows the truth: she was saved on a desolate island not by the god of her ancestors, but by the one he calls a prophet—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Her refusal to participate in the family’s Islamic prayers shatters the fragile peace, leading to a brutal confrontation with her patriarch father. Accused of...

An exhilarating debut by a young writer from Pakistan: provocative, funny, disarmingly original stories that upend traditional notions of identity and family, and peer into the vulnerable workings of the human heart. From the high-stakes worlds of television and politics to the intimate...

"a literary work examining themes of identity, displacement, memory, and moral conflict"—USA Today A bold, intelligent collection of short stories where truth bends, secrets linger, and nothing is quite what it seems. A dazzling collection of twenty-five short stories that move effortlessly between truth and legend, realism and imagination. Blending literary fiction with speculative and espionage-tinged intrigue, these stories refuse to behave—leaning into mischief, flirting with danger, and unsettling the familiar. Some stories crackle with absurdity and wit, exposing the ...

‘Both epic in its sweep and haunting in its intimacy, Musa weaves a profound tapestry of resilience, inheritance, and hope’ Riz Ahmed * * * * An extraordinary and beautiful novel about how understanding our past can pave the way for a hopeful future. Hyderabad, 1946 Ashraf is asleep in her...

What if your life is the price? In the midst of chaos, survival becomes a game of trust, courage, and sacrifice. The Embassy Burned: A Coming of Age Thriller pulls readers into the heart of a gripping international crisis as a group of teenagers finds themselves caught in a deadly standoff at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, November 21, 1979. As their world unravels, Ronnie and her friends must navigate a deadly web of political intrigue and hostage situations. As protests intensify, the teens must confront their own beliefs and fears. With their parents trapped in the Embassy, their survival...

From two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji, one of Canada’s finest and most celebrated writers, comes a brilliant new novel that vividly examines the seemingly incongruous worlds of science, religion and desire. Nurul Islam is a world-renowned physicist, professor at Imperial College...

In the rural town in Pakistan where Baadal grows up, children are named like talismans to sustain life and ward off unhappiness. At seventeen, Baadal has come to understand why his parents gave him that name, with hopes that their Big River will one day flow wide again, and their thirst will be quenched after years of drought. But in the final year of his schooling, abundance seems impossibly far away. As his parents' marriage reaches a breaking point, the only comfort Baadal can afford is a budding kinship with Meena, a divorced older woman he meets on the banks of the drying river.

Osama bin Laden is dead, and the sensational mission to the compound in Abbottabad is rightly hailed as a heroic Navy Seal operation. But is Al-Qaeda now stronger or weaker? A chance raid into Pakistani bandit country, Waziristan, throws up fresh intel that points to a new threat. Another warlord has emerged, a man who claims to be the brother of Osama bin Laden. Although unheard of in the West, murderous terrorists are about to follow his banner and launch a new jihad in their fanatical and never-ending religious wars. A conflict that threatens the peace and security of the world.

Malko Linge is assigned to tail a novice terrorist who has a plot to blow up Air Force One—and the weapons to make it happen. In New Jersey, Parviz Amritzar is mourning for his family—killed by a U.S. airstrike back in Pakistan—and vowing revenge against his adoptive country. He devises a...