Tabish Khair

How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position Tabish Khair

A hilarious, satirical novel from award-winning Indian writer Tabish Khair

Funny and sad, satirical and humane, this novel tells the interlinked stories of three unforgettable men whose trajectories cross in Denmark: the flamboyant Ravi, the fundamentalist Karim, and the unnamed and pragmatic Pakistani narrator.
As the unnamed narrator copes with his divorce, and Ravi despite his exterior of skeptical flamboyance falls deeply in love with a beautiful woman who is incapable of responding in kind, Karim, their landlord, goes on with his job as a taxi driver and his regular Friday Qur an sessions. But is he going on with something else? Who is Karim? And why does he disappear suddenly at times or receive mysterious phone calls? When a terrorist attack takes place in town, all three men find themselves embroiled in doubt, suspicion, and, perhaps, danger.

In his novel set in contemporary times in the west, Khair combines generic elements from the crime thriller, the immigrant novel, the campus novel, and the young adult romance to comment deeply and movingly on our lives today. It is a gripping novel full of suspense, humor, love and unforgettable characters.

An acerbic commentary on the times, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position is also a bitter-sweet, spell-binding novel about love and life today.