HarperCollins presents Shamal Days by Sabin Iqbal

sagiri.dixit@harpercollins.co.in | 20 May 2021

Praise for the Book

‘Sabin Iqbal’s Shamal Days immerses the reader in Abbas’s personal and private struggles, playing out against the searing backdrop of the Gulf. Atmospheric and keenly observed, this novel is an intriguing and insightful read.’
– Shashi Tharoor, Author of The Great Indian Novel and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Prize 2019

‘A magical tale that rings true, set in the Arab lands – a land of stories.’
– Benyamin, Author of Goat Days and Jasmine Days, and winner of the JCB Prize for Literature 2018

‘In this study of aloneness, caused as much by one’s isolation in an unfamiliar land as it is by making a living in the production of news, Sabin Iqbal gives us a history of the Indian in West Asia that I have not encountered in the Indian English novel. It is told with what is rare today – the energy of honesty, and affection for those left outside the news.’
– Sumana Roy, Author of Missing and How I Became a Tree

‘Shamal Days has been imagined by a thoughtful storyteller who poignantly gestures to our rather bleak age with its soul-consuming but still entrancing stories that sweep through and, somehow, still keep the world dreaming.’
– Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Author of Dust and The Dragonfly Sea, and winner of the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing

‘A page-turner of a novel, Shamal Days steeps the reader in a gripping story of politics, sex, betrayal, secrets and lost dreams. Sabin Iqbal brings clarity to many untold histories of the Gulf and the region’s shifting fortunes over many years, while personal alliances and intimacies hauntingly play out against the scenario of the newspaper world inhabited by his characters.’
– Margaret Busby, Chair, Booker Prize jury 2020

About the Book

A middle-aged bachelor heading the editorial at a newspaper in an imagined country in the Arabian Gulf, Abbas is beset by loneliness and the attendant regret – a life punctuated by ifs and maybes, and the dreariness of the dry and dusty shamal winds. Presented with the opportunity to finally bring change in his life, will indecision get the better of him or will he be able to steer his life away from his less-than-beautiful reality?

Set in the 1990s, with the escalating violence in West Asia serving as a backdrop, this is the story of Abbas and of the small newsroom that brings together people – from different backgrounds and with individual stories but shared editorial goof-ups – to a country built and run by the expatriate workforce.

Shamal Days is a whimsical, ironic take on the aspirations and resentments of expatriate life in a tiny desert country and on the political unrest in the region.

Sabin Iqbal says, ‘The expatriates in the Arabian Gulf are a unique community, as no matter how many years they live there, they will always be “temporary people”. Each one of them has an untold story of sacrifice and suffering; of aspiration and despair. The story and the characters of Shamal Days have been in me for over a decade, and they are finally coming out. I’m thrilled to work with HarperCollins India and the talented team!’

Prema Govindan, Commissioning Editor, Literary, HarperCollins India, says, ‘Hiding as much as it reveals between its layers, lamenting as much as it celebrates in sheet after sheet, as real as fine grit in the eye and as illusory a comfort as the mirage on the horizon, Shamal Days, much like the eponymous shamal winds of the Arabian Gulf, is the repository of a people, a culture, a time. We at HarperCollins India are delighted to be publishing Sabin Iqbal’s latest.’

About the Author
Sabin Iqbal is a well-established journalist and author of the critically acclaimed The Cliffhangers. He is also festival director and curator of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters.

For further information, please write to sagiri.dixit@harpercollins.co.in
Fiction | Rs 399