Tabish Khair Knihy

The short story "Namaste Trump" begins in a seemingly ordinary domestic setting, where a servant from the hinterlands faces exploitation by an upwardly mobile urban family. As the nation celebrates Trump's visit amid the pandemic, the narrative evolves into a haunting prophecy. This theme continues through a series of stories exploring fractured lives in small-town India over the past fifty years. In "Night of Happiness," entrepreneur Anil Mehrotra, aided by his quiet and enigmatic lieutenant, Ahmed, uncovers a shocking truth about his trusted aide during a stormy night, leading him to question whether he will find madness or something worse. In three linked stories—"The Corridor," "The Ubiquity of Riots," and "Elopement"—the tensions of living as a liberal Muslim in 1970s and 1980s India are examined through the eyes of an adolescent, highlighting the isolation and violence that ensue. The narrator reappears in "Olden Friends are Golden," reflecting on belonging and exclusion within the context of WhatsApp. "Scam" presents a crime that reveals the victim as the perpetrator, while "Shadow of a Story" brings violence back to a village family in an unimaginable form. "The Thing with Feathers" explores hope that teeters on madness, and "The Last Installment" portrays a father and son trapped in a corporate struggle, capturing their desperation in breathless prose. This collection is a poignant exploration of precarious lives in

CAN THE GLASS EVER REALLY BE MORE THAN HALF-FULL? A young Pakistani academic relives his days sharing a cramped apartment in Aarhus, Denmark, with two unlikely bedfellows. They are Ravi, his incorrigible best friend and a wry observer of the human condition; and Karim, their fundamentalist Muslim landlord, whose apparent double life soon intrigues his tenants. While Ravi finds his jaded world outlook challenged when he falls for an unlikely Danish girl, and our narrator embarks upon a complicated love affair of his own, Karim's bizarre and secretive behaviour leads to creeping suspicions that something might, indeed, be rotten in the state of Denmark . . . By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position is a sparkling account of strangers in strange lands, told with wit and humanity.

Harris Maloub, a killer with a hidden past, receives an unexpected assignment from someone presumed dead. In Aarhus, Denmark, Jens Erik, a police officer on pre-retirement leave, is haunted by the memory of a Black man’s body found in the sea years earlier. Meanwhile, on an abandoned oil rig in the North Sea, Michelle, a young Caribbean woman, discovers that the man she followed to the job is not who he claims to be. The rig, intended as a luxury resort, hides a secret laboratory revealing a terrifying entity that is neither human nor animal. This mystery connects to a 2007 seminar, where most participants are now dead or missing. Their obscure research on plants, fungi, and microbes holds vital secrets. What weapon are powerful syndicates seeking to obtain or create? Set against a post-pandemic backdrop in 2030 while weaving through the 21st century and glimpses of the 19th and 20th centuries, the narrative explores the complexities of life and the earth. It delves into themes of reason and emotion, love and despair, greed and hope, and the relationship between humans and microbes. As the storylines converge, a world of profound terror and beauty unfolds.

Tabish Khair makes the provocative argument that literature is an agnostic mode of thinking about language, reality, and their relationship to each other that can be an antidote to fundamentalism. The book concludes with an impassioned 'call to literature' as a means of remedying the current crisis in the humanities.