Hasta La Ideas

Aamina Ahmad pays exacting attention to her characters’ psychological nuances in her debut novel, The Return of Faraz Ali. The neo-noir novel tells the tale of a Faraz Ali who was taken from his birthplace in Lahore (Pakistan’s second largest city) as a child only to be sent back years later by his powerful politician father, now as a police officer tasked with covering up a young girl’s murder. More than a gripping mystery, the novel is a deft reckoning with caste and gender in Pakistan.