Nazia Sami is a celebrated author, but perhaps her greatest plot twist is yet to be produced. In her final days, she wields a pen one last time as she fills her diary with instructions for her sister, Naureen, and writes six letters to be delivered after her death.
There is to be no funeral for Nazia. Instead, only six invitees are asked to attend a party, one of whom is a mystery guest. Over the course of an extraordinary evening, secrets are revealed, pasts reconsidered, and lives are forever changed.
Perfect for fans of MOHSIN HAMID and KAMILA SHAMSIE, No Funeral for Nazia is a striking and inventive exploration of what death can mean for both the deceased and those left behind.
Taha Kehar
19 October 2023
Pakistan | Contemporary
228 Pages
My Rating ~ 4 bites
Nazia Sami is a wife, mother, and successful author. That’s such a simple description for someone so complicated. Living in Karachi, Pakistan with her younger sister and brother-in-law, she suffers a stroke not long after her daughter leaves in anger to live with an old childhood friend. For three years she struggles and then one night she’s gone. She has written specific instructions for after her death and a funeral is not to be part of it. Instead, a party with certain people and a mystery guest. Unique and stubborn in life, she doesn’t let death dictate her afterlife.
While the writing is a bit choppy, with characters’ emotions flip flopping all over the place, the people are extremely interesting if totally unlikeable. Ok, they do have some redeeming characteristics, but for the most part I’d call them frenemies to Nazia. Nazia herself is a complicated person. Highly intelligent with a keen insight she nevertheless careens through life with a seeming disregard for others. In the course of an evening we learn quite a lot about her from the guests and it turns out, not all is as it seems. But isn’t that the case with most people? We feel like we know our family and friends, but do we really? This is an enjoyable and unique premise with a decent execution. I’ll be watching the author for future books.
A law graduate from SOAS, London, Kehar is the author of two novels, Typically Tanya and Of Rift and Rivalry. His third novel, No Funeral for Nazia, will be published by Neem Tree Press. He has served as the head of The Express Tribune’s Peshawar city pages and bi-monthly books page, and worked as an assistant editor on the op-ed desk at The News. His essays, reviews and commentaries have been published in The News on Sunday, The Hindu and South Asia magazine and his short fiction has appeared in the Delhi-based quarterly The Equator Line, the biannual journal Pakistani Literature and the OUP anthology I’ll Find My Way.
Taha Kehar is a novelist, journalist and literary critic. Based in Karachi, he teaches undergraduate media courses and is planning a novel about male friendships.
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