Adil Najam

(UPDATE: M. Salahuddin Khan’s Sikander (2010), was recently awarded the top prize for general fiction as well as the Grand Prize across all genres at the 2010 Los Angeles Book Festival. ATP congratulates the author on his continued success and the accolades that his debut novel is garnering).

M. Salahuddin Khan’s debut novel, Sikander (2010), is a simple tale, simply told. But it is also a grand narrative of grand events. It is the story of a single individual, but also of civilizational angst. (Visit book’s website here).

The intensity of the book derives from the everyday human struggles of the book’s title character, but it is all wrapped up within layers of global strategy, international intrigue, and a deep sense of history. It is this very dialectic – the unfolding of  grand historical drama and the pains and passions of one individual unwittingly caught in the midst of that drama – that makes this 550+ page epic a surprisingly quick read and something not easy to stop reading once you have begun.

Adil Najam

One question that many people have been asking is ‘What is the best way to help those – now an estimated over 2.5 million Pakistanis – who have been affected by the recent torrential rains and floods in Pakistan?’

The most honest answer, I think, is that right now so much help and assistance is needed by so many that no matter how you help, and through whom, it will be a good thing and it will make the lives of at least some at least a little more bearable.

On behalf of all of our readers, we had earlier send a first donation from ATP to Edhi Foundation and now are sending an additional donation, bringing the total to US$5,000. We realize this is a small amount and insignificant in light of the challenges, but we mention it here (a) because it comes from our Ad revenues and therefore from you, and (b) because we wish to reinforce the point that everyone should do whatever little they can, because every little bit counts.

A few readers and past donors have written to us asking that we should do a collection at ATP as be have done in the past (for cyclone victims, for earthquake victims, for IDPs, etc.). However, given how many other good avenues now exist we think it is better to just urge you to give wherever you can and whatever you can. More that that, we write today to ask you to please share with other readers what you think are good mechanisms to give through, good organizations to give to, and good ways to help the flood victims in Pakistan. We know that a number of our readers – Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis – will find this information very very useful, and we urge you to please help us catalog it so that it can help others, and through them help the flood victims.

Adil Najam