Джамиль Ян Кочай — новинки

Pen/Hemingway finalist Jamil Jan Kochai ​breathes life into his contemporary Afghan characters, exploring heritage and memory from the homeland to the diaspora in the United States, in the spiritual and physical lands ​these unforgettable characters inhabit.

In playing Metal Gear Solid V, a young man's video game experience turns into a surreal exploration on his own father's memories of war and occupation. A college student in Hungry Ricky Daddy starves himself in protest of Israeli violence against Palestine. Set in Kabul, Return to Sender follows a doctor couple who must deal with the harsh realities of their decision to stay as the violence grows and their son disappears. And in the title story, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, we learn the story of a man codenamed Hajji, from the perspective of a government surveillance worker, who becomes entrenched in the immigrant family's life.

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is a moving, exploration and narrative of heritage, the ghosts of war, and home--​and one that speaks to the immediate political landscape we reckon with today.

Logar, Afghanistan, im Jahr 2005: Der 12-jährige Marwand kehrt mit seiner Familie für einen Sommer aus den USA in seine Heimat zurück. Doch wie "Heimat" fühlt sich das Dorf ohne McDonald's, dafür mit merkwürdigen Bräuchen und noch merkwürdigerer Sprache, überhaupt nicht an. Und dann beißt ihm gleich am ersten Tag Budabasch, der dreibeinige Wachhund des Dorfes, eine Fingerspitze ab und verschwindet in den Weiten des Hindukuschs. Für Marwand und seine Freunde beginnt eine abenteuerliche Jagd durch ein kriegsversehrtes Land. Eine wilde und märchenhafte Suche in 99 Nächten nach dem eigenen Platz zwischen den Kulturen.

"Bevor ich es vergesse, hier sind ein paar Dinge, die ich in Logar sah: Eine Kobra. Sechs Kinder im Alter von vier bis elf, die zu der Kobra liefen. Eine Kobra mit abgezogener Haut, von sechs Kindern totgeschlagen. Eine Drohne (glaube ich?). 1.226 weiße Lilien. Einen wahren Gott. Keinen Budabasch."

Jamil Jan Kochai was born in Pakistan and grew up in the United States. He has a Masters in English from UC Davis and is a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in A Public Space, Ploughshares, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. 99 Nights in Logar is his debut novel.
Shortlisted for the DSC Prize 2019
Laconic, sharp and playful, 99 Nights in Logar is a stunning

A coming-of-age story about one boy’s journey across contemporary Afghanistan to find and bring home the family dog, blending the grit and immediacy of voice-driven fiction like We Need New Names with the mythmaking of One Thousand and One Nights.

Twelve-year-old Marwand’s memories from his previous visit to Afghanistan six years ago center on his contentious relationship with Budabash, the terrifying but beloved dog who guards his extended family’s compound in Logar. Eager to find an ally in this place that’s meant to be “home,” Marwand approaches Budabash the way he would any dog on his American suburban block—and the results are disastrous: Marwand loses a finger and Budabash escapes.

The resulting search for the family dog is an expertly told adventure, a ninety-nine-night quest that sends Marwand and his cousins across the landscape of Logar. Moving between celebrations and tragedies, deeply humorous and surprisingly tender, 99 Nights in Logar is a vibrant exploration of the power of stories—the ones we tell each other, and the ones we find ourselves in.