The Haunting of Hajji Hotak

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents The Haunting of Hajji Hotak by Jamil Jan Kochai, read by Fajer Al-Kaisi, Peter Ganim and Suehyla El-Attar Young.

A finalist for the National Book Award - a luminous new collection of stories from a young writer with 'a singular, resonant voice, an American teenager raised by Old World Afghan storytellers' (New York Times)

**FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION**
**NAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER AND THE ATLANTIC**

PEN/Hemingway finalist Jamil Jan Kochai breathes life into his contemporary Afghan characters, moving between modern-day Afghanistan and the Afghan diaspora in America. In these arresting stories verging on both comedy and tragedy, often starring young characters whose bravado is matched by their tenderness.

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is a moving exploration of characters grappling with the ghosts of war and displacement - and one that speaks to the immediate political landscape we reckon with today.

'An endlessly inventive and moving collection from a thrilling and capacious young talent' Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins.

'Kochai’s short fiction defies expectations – readers’ expectations of what a story should look like, and the story of a nation often told reductively and exclusively through media headlines' Guardian

Critics Review

Employing elements of the surreal, the absurd, and the magical, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak asks what war does to those who see it firsthand - and how this witnessing reverberates to their descendants
ATLANTIC, Books of the Year 2022
Shortlisted for the National Book Award, Kochai’s inventive début story collection details the toll that decades of war and the struggles of immigration have taken on Afghans and the Afghan diaspora in the United States
NEW YORKER, Books of the Year 2022
[Kochai’s] short fiction defies expectations – readers’ expectations of what a story should look like, and the story of a nation often told reductively and exclusively through media headlines
GUARDIAN
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is an endlessly inventive and moving collection, the work of a thrilling and capacious young talent. These stories surprise and charm and haunt in equal measure, while challenging the world as we think we know it. Jamil Jan Kochai is the real deal
JESS WALTER, author of Beautiful Ruins
Jamil Jan Kochai is a once-in-a-generation talent
KARAN MAHAJAN, author of The Association of Small Bombs
Kochai has a gift for knowing what makes the engine of a story turn over and go, what formal choices might deliver a narrative in such a way as to coax a reader to endure a set of experiences that, whatever their frequent delights - and the stories are uncommonly full of them - are rooted in sorrow, loss, and rage
NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is beyond brilliant. These stories build and amass, individually and collectively, open then close as if the fingers and palm of some great power making a fist … There is so much range and breadth and depth in this collection. Here we have humor and rage and style in spades, with storytelling as inventive as it is enthralling. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time
TOMMY ORANGE, author of There, There
A profound and visceral short-story collection ... More than almost any other work of fiction I’ve read in the post-9/11 era, Kochai’s collection lays bare the surrealism that colors nearly every interaction between one of history’s most powerful empires and the people it considers disposable ... The result is a dark literary impeachment, a fable in which the emperor is missing not clothes but a conscience
ATLANTIC
A remarkable collection ... seamed with sharp wit, and often hilarious ... Kochai is a thrillingly gifted writer, and this collection is a pleasure to read, filled with stories at once funny and profoundly serious, formally daring, and complex in their apprehension of the contradictory yet overlapping worlds of their characters
HARPER'S MAGAZINE
A brilliant, crazy quilt exploring filial devotion, religious beliefs, family, history and the effects of endless war
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak is a book of shape-shifting. Kochai constantly experiments with form and voice, deftly stepping between photorealism and fantasy to create a vivid, surreal short-story collection that is both a modern parable of American imperialism and a testament to Kochai’s skill as a writer ... As Afghanistan fades into the background of American discourse, Kochai’s voice is essential. We may not wish to see what we have wrought; Kochai, it seems, will ensure we do not forget
VOX
Lighthearted yet powerful and oftentimes funny, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak is an incredible work of deep empathy and care, with witty writing and sharp stories that take unpredictable turns
CHICAGO TIMES
A captivating collection ... in turns amusing and devastating, the stories are rich with vivid scenes and distinct narrative voices ... the range of framing and styles keeps the reader on their toes and delivers emotional impact in one hard-hitting entry after another. Readers won’t want to miss this
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A master class in storytelling, and a beautiful reflection on a people that have endured decades upon decades of tragedy. Stunning, compassionate, flawless
KIRKUS
There’s magic here ... in this visceral, timely collection
BOOKLIST

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