The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali - by Uzma Aslam Khan (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2023 Massachusetts Book Award, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali weaves fictional narrative with real historical events, set against the backdrop of the Andaman Islands reeling from the effects of war.

Local Borns Nomi & Zee - find themselves alone after their parents are shipped away. The Andaman Islands, while beautiful, are an inhospitable place. Together with their friend Aye, the pet hen Priya, and the distracted love of their parents, the siblings make it through from one day to the next. Meanwhile, within the walls of the prison, war wages on between prisoners and their jailers.

When war descends upon this overlooked outpost of the Empire, the British are forced out and the Japanese move in.It's not long before the first shot is fired, forcing Zee to flee, leaving Nomi and the other islanders to contend with a new malice. The islands--and the seas surrounding them--become a battlefield, resulting in tragedy for some and a brittle kind of freedom for others.

Uzma Aslam Khan writes of people caught in the vortex of history, powerless in many ways, yet unveils their own bravery, empathy, and endurance. "Khan's suspenseful, thought-provoking narrative is a challenge to simple assumptions about enemies and friends, loyalty and betrayal," (The New York Times) The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali, is an unflinching and lyrical page-turner, an epic telling of a largely forgotten chapter in the history of the subcontinent.

Review Quotes

Winner: 2023 Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction

A New York Times' pick for "Best Historical Fiction 2022"

A New York Times' pick for "Books for Summer 2022"

"A miraculous performance ... Khan's suspenseful, thought-provoking narrative is a challenge to simple assumptions about enemies and friends, loyalty and betrayal." --Alida Becker, The New York Times

"Deeply researched and beautifully written." --Kirkus Reviews

"Khan engages readers with a confident style and seamless storytelling." --Publishers Weekly

"As affecting as it is intellectually powerful, the novel is a master lesson in the art of historical fiction." --Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger and Run and Hide

"A glorious novel about a forgotten place and a part of our history that we hardly ever talk about." --Mohammed Hanif, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Red Birds

"With piercingly lucid attention, Uzma has drawn an intricate spider's web that is both a record and a refuge ... the tenderness with which (she) write(s) is a kind of intervention of knowing that is in opposition to the colonial one." --Aracelis Girmay, conversation with the author in Los Angeles Review of Books

"Part of the beauty of Khan's writing stems from the fact that she does not need to actively portray racism, she makes virtually all her characters live it ... Khan writes with quietly restrained but powerful passion." --Dawn, Pakistan

"Khan is adept at creating worlds that are at once magical and terrifying. She creates a universe out of a footnote of history. Her writing is crystal, vivid." --Indian Express

"For every historical outrage eventually there comes along a work of fiction that does it justice ... miraculously (lifting) the mists of collective forgetfulness. The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali performs that vital and welcome miracle. The voices of the past have been successfully captured and amplified by this remarkable novel ... (with a) dream-like quality to (the) beautiful prose." --The Herald Pakistan & Scroll.in

"This fiction is the new truth we need to know." --New Indian Express

About the Author

Uzma Aslam Khan is the award-winning author of five novels translated worldwide to critical acclaim. These include Trespassing, recipient of a Commonwealth Prize nomination in 2003; The Geometry of God, a Kirkus Reviews' Best Book of 2009; Thinner Than Skin, nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize and DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and winner of the French Embassy Prize for Best Fiction at the Karachi Literature Festival 2014. Khan's new novel, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali, was shortlisted for the Tata Literature Live! Best Book of the Year Award for Fiction 2019 and won the 9th UBL Literary Awards English Language Fiction category 2020 as well as the Karachi Literature Festival-Getz Pharma Fiction Prize 2021. She currently calls western Massachusetts home.