Read Reviews

Praise for NOOR

"Sorayya Khan has written a powerful and haunting novel, and a wholly original book."
- Claire Messud, author of The Last Life and The Hunters.

"Noor is a beautiful novel of love, violence, healing and peace. Khan cuts through preconceptions and stereotypes about the Islamic world to give us characters who are breathtakingly alive in the most human and individual of ways- just what we need in this time of global crisis. It should be required reading for every American."
- Robert Siegel, author of All the Money in the World.

"Khan’s ability to sensitively portray the character of a child with special needs is exceptional. Noor [is] a rich but mysterious work of fiction with many layers to ponder."
- Friday Times, Islamabad, March 12-18, 2004

"Sorayya Khan’s narrative in Noor has a dark, poignant beauty."
- The Telegraph, Calcutta, July 16, 2004

"In a series of chilling portraits, Noor brings the past back with an exactitude that is both fearful and astonishing. Sorayya Khan’s Noor is a remarkable novel for the simple reason that it breaks the long tacit silence among Pakistanis of all hues to speak of the horrors of what they saw and did in East Pakistan."
- The Hindu, May 7, 2004

"Noor is a haunting book... Wars may end, but the searing shrapnel they leave behind, embedded deep within the individual and collective psyche, continues to colour the present. Noor is such a remarkable novel because it conveys this in the most understated but convincing way."
- New Indian Express, Chennai, April 4, 2004

"[Noor] picks up momentum ending in an unputdownable work."
- Hindustan Times, New Delhi, March 21, 2004

"Khan’s prose is unrelentingly intense as she tells us of the tragedies of cyclone and war beating down on the fragile landscape."
- India Today, New Delhi, April 12, 2004

"[Noor] is both courageous and remarkable because it breaks a long literary silence and is the first Pakistani English novel to focus on East Pakistan during the war of 1971 and comes to terms with its brutality."
- Dawn, Karachi, August 17, 2003

"Noor is the unbearable lightness of being explored . . . It’s a history of wars won and lost and boundaries redrawn and barbed, to the point of a futile no-finality. It’s about life without the “happily ever after,” not because cynicism tears asunder fairy tale endings, but because in perspective, life isn’t tidy, it has a messy unchiaroscuro in-between."
- First City, New Delhi, May 2004

"Though unflinching in her descriptions of the horrors of the war, she doesn’t give in to the temptation to take sides or offer justification. Her writing is remarkable because it is so subtle and so honest."
- Deccan Herald, Bangalore, June 6, 2004

"It is hard to believe this is Sorayya Khan’s first novel."
- She Magazine, Karachi, June 2003