Author: Mehvash Amin | Editor-in-Chief (The Aleph Review)

Hussein is that rare breed of writers who lives for his craft. Many books and accolades later, this gentle man turns to looking back at his life in a slim volume that is neither quite an autobiography nor indeed accompanied by the verbosity and self-magnification that accompanies such books. Published by Ushba Publishing International Perhaps he might not have even written it had it not been for the fact that around the Covid years, his earlier Cancer diagnosis was updated by the caveat that he would live for two to five years instead of the given ten. Then, he broke…

I met the author of this book before I ever read it. In fact he very adroitly steered a session on The Aleph Review at the Lahore Literary Festival, with wit and knowledge. Those are the two mainstays of his novel as well, which has now been translated into Urdu. The novel moves through the centuries from 2084 BCE Mohenjodaro, where a young man takes to a solitary existence in the then wooded environs of the ancient city. He sees imminent disaster that he thinks will destroy the city. But the moment the reader settles herself in this world, she…