On the Other Side

Abdus-Salam Kalshekar’s only aspiration was to publish his Dastan-e-Ishq, a seven-volume ‘Saga of Passion’, before his death. While Salam could only complete three volumes, an author sets out to write a novel about Salam, unveiling the fifty-three diaries about the latter’s past amours that consume the saga. It also reveals a certain beloved whom Salam could never bring himself to write about. While Salam's life unfolds a world that is riddled with patriarchy, caste prejudice, religious intolerance and exploitation in the name of faith, the deeper conflicts of love and abandonment are revealed in this expertly crafted narrative, now available in an English translation.

Rahman Abbas won India’s highest literary honor, the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 2018 for his fourth Urdu novel, Rohzin. He has also won four state Sahitya Akademi awards for his novels. Rahman is the author of ten books, including six novels. When his first novel was published, Islamists had accused him of spreading obscenity through his work and had filed a case against his novel. He was forced to resign from his job at a Muslim institution. Rahman fought a court trial for over ten years and was acquitted in 2016 of the obscenity charges. Rohzin has been translated into German, English and Hindi, and received the prestigious LitProm Grant managed by the Swiss and German governments. It was also longlisted for the JCB Prize and shortlisted for the Muse India 2023 GSP Rao Translation Award. On the Other Side was originally published in 2011 under the title Khuda Ke Saaye Mein Aankh Micholi and won the Maharashtra State Urdu Sahitya Academy Award. Rahman lives in Mumbai.