Critic Reviews
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Based on 7 reviews on
Zain Khalid's writing has appeared in The New Yorker, n+1, The Believer, Astra Magazine, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, and elsewhere. His debut novel, Brother Alive, is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for best first book in any genre and was named a best book of 2022 by Library Journal and other outlets. He is a finalist for the 2023 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. He is also the fiction editor at The Drift.
**Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award**
**Winner of the CLMP Firecracker Award****Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize**Shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for FictionFinalist for the NBCC John Leonard PrizeFinalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award
A New York Times Writer to Watch This Summer
Named a Best Book of the Year by Literary Hub and Library JournalNamed a Lit 16 Debut Book
"Beguiling . . . A nervy, episodic read . . . Khalid is such a gifted commentator that his methods bear close examination . . . [His] sentences abound with florid, poetic metaphors while maintaining the clipped, declarative tempo of Scripture . . . Brother Alive is Rushdie with none of the ceremony, a searing collage of the profound and the mundane."--Pete Tosiello, New York Times Book Review"This debut is essential reading for anyone who loves great writing. Zain Khalid is a supremely talented writer and his skills with words dazzle on every page of this book . . . A novel about family, belonging, sexuality, and the insidious influence of capitalism on daily life, Brother Alive reminded me just how powerful a great novel can be. As I finished it I found myself looking at the world in a more expansive way, and that's something I'm immensely grateful for."--David Vogel, BuzzFeed"A stunningly ambitious and complex debut . . . Most profound is Khalid's deep exploration of grief . . . An engrossing read, a propulsive narrative with lyrical prose that will stay with you long after the last page."--Sadiya Ansari, Toronto Star"Brother Alive feels like the first work of fiction since the beginning of the pandemic that reflects the mood of the city . . . This book, so focused on the past, sometimes seems to have little optimism for the future. But some of Khalid's best writing comes when he has Youssef wax eloquent about whatever's on the horizon. Even though Brother Alive is far from hopeful, wrestling with intellectual and political energies that seem to have no appropriate outlet, Youssef, and his author, maintain a sense of delirious wonder throughout. It's a very New York quality: Every so often, the cynicism falls away and the sentiment--the affection that keeps us in this worn-out city--shines through."--Jonah Bromwich, Atlantic"Takes the reader from Staten Island to Saudi Arabia on a journey into a unique madness . . . Khalid's writing is lyrical, with the precise vocabulary of a poetry and a surveyor's eye for details, yet Brother Alive never gets lost in its erudition--the prose is delightful and clear . . . Ultimately a work of profound sadness as much as political savvy, Brother Alive is a stunning debut."--Brian Watson, Rain Taxi"A smooth interleaving of science-fiction with high-resolution realism and hallucinatory phantasmagoria . . . One of those books that appear only seldomly and bellow, from the first page, from the first line, that they require, beyond the valence-judgements expected of a review, earnest, laborious exploration."--Jonah Howell, Cleveland Review of Books"This wildly ambitious novel seeks to break new ground in big-issue territory like provenance, race, class, birth and rebirth . . . Take note of Zain Khalid's name."--Jane Graham, Big Issue (UK)"Brother Alive is a rigorously intelligent, wholly sensitive, and quietly rebellious work of art, with prose as profound as it is beautiful. What an inspiring examination of the waywardness of life and the grounding of love this story is. What a wise, thoughtful writer Zain Khalid is. What a gift to humanity this book is."--Robert Jones, Jr., New York Times-bestselling author of The Prophets
"This genre-defying novel, and the intelligence, originality, and awareness of the mind that produced it, astonished me. I was reminded of Günter Grass, of Viet Thanh Nguyen. Through the consciousness of an unforgettable narrator, Youssef, Khalid begins by subtly illuminating the contours of a globalized world in which the personal is geopolitical; he ends by turning up the light and refusing to let us look away."--Vauhini Vara, author of The Immortal King Rao
"Brother Alive is a remarkable work. Zain Khalid creates an immersive world rich in compelling detail. But even more impressively, Khalid achieves a kind of resistance text against our endemic inhumanity. The thrill lies in witnessing such a cogent and powerful intellect tune in to the music of life. An inspiring reminder of the great capacity of novels."--Sergio de la Pava, author of A Naked Singularity