‘Allah Miyan’s Workshop’: Explorations of faith and prejudice in a boy’s coming-of-age story
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Sometimes, I like to pick up a book without reading anything about it first. Sometimes, it is just the blurb, or perhaps only the title. Nothing else. Sometimes, the fact that a translator decided to translate a certain novel is enough. I find it satisfying to let a story tell itself on its own terms. I’m willingly led by it – I do not try to anticipate where it is headed. Urdu writer Mohsin Khan’s novel Allah Miyan’s Workshop, translated by Maaz Bin Bilal, turned out to be one such book for me. I picked it up knowing almost nothing about it, and perhaps that was the best way to read it.
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A child’s world
The novel’s central character is Gibran, a curious 14-year-old boy living in Awadh. Along with his coming of age, we also follow him as he comes to terms with religion, family, and the expectations placed upon him by his conservative father, who wants him to work at the local mosque. His carefree childhood is interrupted when his father is arrested on suspicion of terrorism. What begins as a bildungsroman unfolds into an exploration of faith, prejudice, and the loss of innocence.
There is also a childlike wonder to the writing that adds to the novel’s...