Wandering Falcon

[alice malice]

A disturbing little book I somehow enjoyed at times.


In the early 70s, Ahmad, a civil servant in those parts of Pakistan
now frequently in the news with the adjective "lawless" appended to
them, wrote a collection of loosely interlinked stories about the
people and tribes among whom he'd been working. More than three
decades later, his brother turned on the radio and heard about a short
story competition in its inaugural year – he submitted Ahmad's entire
manuscript. It arrived past the deadline and the judges (of whom I was
one) never saw any of the stories. But the critic Faiza Sultan Khan,
who was co-founder and administrator of the prize, saw the promise in
the manuscript and sent it to an editor at Penguin India.

Now, at 78, Ahmad is a published writer in a world that has become
familiar with many of the names in his writing – Waziristan, the
Mehsuds – for reasons that would have been impossible to predict
nearly four decades ago.

Is this a novel or a collection of short stories?

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/14/wandering-falcon-jamil-ahmad-review
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l