CRITICAL PRAISE FOR BLASPHEMY:THE TRIAL OF DANESH MASIH
You have to remind yourself that Osman's novel and the characters he conjures are fictional because they are convincingly real, so much so, that their words stay with you long after you have put down the book.
— Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Academy Award winning filmmaker
In this novel of quiet creeping horror, Haneef forces us to confront the supreme evil that lies at the heart of Pakistan's blasphemy law.
— Aatish Taseer, journalist and author
A brisk, humane tale that contends with the inhumanity that has come to define our times.
— HM Naqvi, winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and author Homeboy and The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack
Love, the law, religion and violence – this book’s got the lot. And it’s a cracking read too.
— Owen Bennett-Jones, author and journalist
Osman Haneef’s debut novel, “Blasphemy: The Trial of Danesh Masih,” is a courageous and forthright survey of the way Pakistan’s blasphemy law (Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code) is implemented, the possibilities it offers the vigilante groups to exploit the law for their mundane gains or to settle personal scores, and the impact it has not only on the lives of the accused and his family but also on the behaviour of their fellow citizens, the prosecutors and even the first trial court. The author succeeds to a remarkable degree in staying close to the truth and in eschewing sensationalism. Instead of forcing his conclusions on the readers he lets them make their own judgment. The story of the young accused has been deftly embellished with an unusual love story, an old lawyer’s spiritual journey and a mosaic of life in Quetta in the 1980s. A powerful appeal for a critical review of the blasphemy law, the narrative should also persuade Pakistan’s intelligentsia to ponder what they have made their state, especially its legal system, and society into.
— IA Rehman, former Director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
A brave and beautifully crafted story of modern Pakistan, with its fault-lines of religion, class, love and family intersecting through one man's battle against his and his nation's demons.
— Snigdha Poonam, journalist and author of Dreamers: How Young Indians are Changing the World
A promising debut that implicates us all in the devastation that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have wreaked for far too long.
— Sanam Maher, author of A Woman Like Her: The Short Life of Qandeel Baloch
Blasphemy is a necessary book. Sikhander is a privileged young man reckoning both with his own darkness and that of his troubled country, and unlike most fictional young men he isn't thrust into the role of defender but chooses courage of his own volition. His relationship with Abbey is strikingly real and reminds us of the many women still left behind by the MeToo era, living among those whose entire faith rests on the word of a single man, but who themselves are yet to be believed.
— Anat Deracine, author of Driving by Starlight
Two star-crossed former lovers find themselves together again in Pakistan, caught in a religious and political crossfire as they try to avert a tragedy that becomes all too personal and close to home.Osman Haneef’s Blasphemy brings us a well-wrought, suspense-filled tale of heart-rending sectarian violence and injustice in modern day Pakistan.
— Susan Kenney, author and winner of the O'Henry Prize
Tackling a very challenging and controversial issue, this is a groundbreaking novel about love, loss, perseverance and the silent strength we find within. Haneef's prose is measured and compelling, at times witty, luring us into a world, a city we know very little about. Honest and thoughtful, this novel is by an author at the height of his powers. An astonishing debut.
— Awais Khan, author of In the Company of Strangers
"One always feels Pakistan before one sees it.” Osman Haneef writes about contemporary Pakistan with sympathy, acuity, and ferocity. Through characters who are at once rebels and conformists, insiders and outsiders, perpetrators and victims, his novels fearlessly explore themes of attachment and alienation—to family, community and country.
— M.E. Breen, Author of Darkwood, Instructor, Stanford Continuing Studies