Former AKU student writes debut novel

'Auras of the Jinn' depicts a world where tragedy is more funny than sad, where love is more expressed than felt.

KARACHI: Haider Warraich, who was a medical student at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, is set to join the ranks of new Pakistani talent with Auras of the Jinn that is being published by IndiaInk, Roli Books, New Delhi, India. Stocks arrive in a fortnight, said a press release.

Warraich’s debut novel is a “quintessentially” Pakistani story, depicting a world where tragedy is more funny than sad, where love is more expressed than felt and where actions and ideas exist only to contradict themselves. According to the synopsis, Imran is a boy growing up in present-day Pakistan. His family is among many in Mohajir Colony. Things change when there is a new visitor to the house — emerging from the dust of the railroad graveyard — as much a disease, a jinn, as a spiritual voice.

Warraich has been a regular political and literary contributor to various English newspapers in Pakistan and has also been published in several international medical journals. He is currently a research fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2010.