Book cover of Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday

Book description

In this novel about peace in a time of war, debut author Jamaluddin Aram masterfully breathes life into the colourful characters of the town of Wazirabad, in early 1990s Kabul, Afghanistan.

It is the early 1990s, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Russian occupation has ended, and civil war has broken out,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Aram’s book plunged me into a surreal landscape that felt weirdly normal—a quality familiar to me from dreams.

It’s set in a neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan, during the civil war of the mid-90s, but this isn’t like any war I’ve seen depicted: there are no armies with clashing interests.

No one knows who’s fighting or why. This war isn’t about anything, it’s just there, meaningless and ubiquitous, like rush hour traffic or pollution, something to get through as you go about your everyday life, be it collecting scorpions, having sex with the neighbor’s wife, creating beauty with calligraphy, whatever… Often…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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