The Wandering Falcon – Jamil Ahmad

A most unusual format of storytelling, The Wandering Falcon is the debut novel of Pakistani author Jamil Ahmad, who was a civil servant in the Baluchistan region, along the border with Afghanistan. The book is not the standard novel centered on a single protagonist, but a series of loosely interconnected short stories. It focuses on life in the region post independence. While no clear period has been outlined it’s clear that the stories start sometime in the 1950s and go on from there. The titular character is Tor Baz whose parents are killed for violating their tribe’s rules. However the book does not detail his journey, so much as it brings him into the stories tangentially at different stages in his life.

Written in simple yet powerful prose, the stories provide a remarkable insight into the people of this ‘lawless’ land, most specifically the nomadic tribes who have moved freely back and forth along the border for centuries and suddenly come face to face with border enforcement. It is an honest and insightful look at people the world chooses to overlook. While some may accuse the book of misogyny, this is not true. Characters even female ones are empowered and make their choices freely, even if the choice is one we wouldn’t conventionally understand. Ahmad manages to be the old-timer next to a camp fire enthralling his audience and leaving them spellbound with his skill.

S.H. Han