Pureland by Zarrar Said
Zarrar Said . Unknown Year . English
An assassin, accused of heinous acts of terror, begins his testimony by claiming responsibility for the murder of the Nobel Prize winning physicist, Salim Agha. To explain his motive, he narrates the story of Salim and the tragic relationship he had with his beloved nation, Pureland.Salim's unlikely life is prophesized by a levitating saint. Starting as a feudal servant, he inadvertently contributes to a coup d'etat that derails his country and eventually leads to a hostile takeover of Pureland by the Caliphate. Salim leaves for New York. Over his subsequent years in exile, remorse leads him to try and undo this wrong - and in doing so he creates vicious enemies who vie to slay him. One such enemy is the narrator himself. Inspired by a true story, Zarrar Said's novel Pureland is a tour-de-force debut about a nation that has lost its way, its people who suffer from unspeakable tyranny, and a remorseful hero whose legacy has been wiped out by hatred.
Categories: Literary Fiction
About the Author
Zarrar Said was born in Lahore and spent his childhood between Dubai, Lahore and the US. He has an undergraduate degree in business from The Ohio State University and a graduate degree in quantitative finance from George Washington University. Zarrar's debut novel, Pureland, is a fictionalized narrative based on the tragic life of Dr. Abdus Salam, a Nobel prize winning physicist who was excommunicated by the country of his birth and who spent his entire adult life in exile due to his religious affiliations. Dr. Salam's achievements in science and his remarkable story was then eradicated from his country's educational curriculum. Pureland is the retelling of that tragedy in the form of a love story told through magical realism. Pureland embodies themes of lost homelands, class discrimination and dogmatic politics. Zarrar believes that societies suffer from the prejudices they keep. Pureland itself became one such story, with bookstores in South Asia deeming it too controversial to sell. Zarrar currently lives and works in New York City.
