ALLAH MIYAN’S WORKSHOP

In a small village in Awadh, fourteen-year-old Gibran’s conservative father wants him to get employed in a mosque. The boy attends the madrasa, memorizes his lessons, helps his Amma at home … and yet, on freezing Friday mornings, when he must bathe before offering prayers, he wonders why there must be Fridays in winter!

Gibran’s is an innocent world: he loves flying kites, flies even dragonflies by tying strings to their tails, skips the madrasa to watch the Nat’s tamasha, gets caned for stealing a quarter-rupee coin, and when a cat grabs their hen, he asks why He who made the cat also made the hen.

One day, news arrives that his father has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism, and Gibran’s world turns upside down. Faced with death, parting and abandonment, his only refuge might lie in a world of imagination.

Celebrated Urdu writer Mohsin Khan’s acclaimed first novel, Allah Miyan’s Workshop, now masterfully translated into English by Maaz Bin Bilal, is a story about childhood and its travails – at once humorous, tender and piercing.