What do you think?
Rate this book
White World
Pakistan, 2083 AD.
Allah has burned the sky away. A mysterious snow falls over everything. Is it an endless winter? Is it the result of a nuclear exchange with India? A celestial impact? Now a barren wasteland, what little is left of Pakistan is heavily segregated along religious lines.
For Avaan, a gun in the hand feels as natural as breathing. An apostate pariah living under martial law and religious bigotry, violence has become a way of life. What respite he had from this terrifying world — his brother, his family, and Doua, the love of his life — was snatched away in military raids.
Now broken, Avaan finds himself involved in a civil war that poisons everything he’s ever believed in. The army shadows his every move, a mob boss wants him dead, and a legendary resistance leader has taken a keen interest in him. But there is a ray of Avaan discovers that Doua is alive. Obsessed with finding her, he takes a stand against the army, the mob, and Pakistan itself with the only thing he has ever been able to count the gun in his hand.
Allah has burned the sky away. A mysterious snow falls over everything. Is it an endless winter? Is it the result of a nuclear exchange with India? A celestial impact? Now a barren wasteland, what little is left of Pakistan is heavily segregated along religious lines.
For Avaan, a gun in the hand feels as natural as breathing. An apostate pariah living under martial law and religious bigotry, violence has become a way of life. What respite he had from this terrifying world — his brother, his family, and Doua, the love of his life — was snatched away in military raids.
Now broken, Avaan finds himself involved in a civil war that poisons everything he’s ever believed in. The army shadows his every move, a mob boss wants him dead, and a legendary resistance leader has taken a keen interest in him. But there is a ray of Avaan discovers that Doua is alive. Obsessed with finding her, he takes a stand against the army, the mob, and Pakistan itself with the only thing he has ever been able to count the gun in his hand.
Kindle Edition
Published September 28, 2024
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Saad T. Farooqi
1 book5 followersBorn in Saudi Arabia, Saad moved to Pakistan before his first birthday. There, he survived three separate kidnapping attempts before he was eight. His family eventually settled in the United Arab Emirates. After initially enrolling in electrical engineering to please his parents, Saad graduated with a BA in English Literature from the American University of Sharjah. He then earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Kingston University, London. Saad immigrated to Canada in 2015, and resides in London, Ontario.
His debut novel, White World, will be published by Cormorant Books in September 2024.
He is based in London, Ontario.
His debut novel, White World, will be published by Cormorant Books in September 2024.
He is based in London, Ontario.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 22, 2025
Told in alternating perspectives throughout the time of the story and the previous thirty years, White World integrates so many perspectives and stories of those persecuted in this setting. There is mystery and danger and self discovery and so much more. As you read, information begins to click into place and your mental map of this world and the interconnection between characters grows. It's like nothing I've read before and despite the heaviness of it, it was surprisingly easy to read quickly. I kept finding I'd made much more progress than I expected.
January 29, 2026
Snow isn’t pure
How did the book make me feel/think?
White World is set in a dystopian future that feels disturbingly familiar. A future built on the oldest lie we know, that history can be ignored if the walls are high enough and the gates are selective enough.
It offers a promise of a pristine world for those with means—clean, safe, empty. Empty of danger, yes, but also empty of pulse, reason, and vibrancy. A world achieved only by exporting suffering elsewhere and pretending it no longer exists. We’ve been here before. And the book suggests—correctly—that we are destined to repeat it.
Race hums beneath every page. So does religion. Islam. Christianity. The idea of “the chosen.” An impossibility dressed up as divine order. Sexuality is not condemned outright, provided desire remains dormant, hidden, obedient. The question lingers: are these systems really different, or simply rehearsing the same controls with different vocabularies?
Whiteness here is not an identity but an atmosphere—bland, anesthetized, stripped of contradiction. A ladder exists, but it’s fractured, warped by judgment, by God, by the sickness of certainty. Humanity, once again, proves it has no bounds when killing to protect what never belonged to them—what never belonged to anyone.
A kiss is condemned. A bullet is worshipped.
Snow becomes a symbol of purity—a lie we’ve told ourselves for centuries. It isn’t clean. It’s sickness falling from the sky, covering rot, so we don’t have to look at it.
History repeats. Not as a metaphor. As policy.
And the book leaves us with a question that refuses to sit quietly:
Are we already living in the dystopia?
WRITTEN: 29 January 2026
How did the book make me feel/think?
White World is set in a dystopian future that feels disturbingly familiar. A future built on the oldest lie we know, that history can be ignored if the walls are high enough and the gates are selective enough.
It offers a promise of a pristine world for those with means—clean, safe, empty. Empty of danger, yes, but also empty of pulse, reason, and vibrancy. A world achieved only by exporting suffering elsewhere and pretending it no longer exists. We’ve been here before. And the book suggests—correctly—that we are destined to repeat it.
Race hums beneath every page. So does religion. Islam. Christianity. The idea of “the chosen.” An impossibility dressed up as divine order. Sexuality is not condemned outright, provided desire remains dormant, hidden, obedient. The question lingers: are these systems really different, or simply rehearsing the same controls with different vocabularies?
Whiteness here is not an identity but an atmosphere—bland, anesthetized, stripped of contradiction. A ladder exists, but it’s fractured, warped by judgment, by God, by the sickness of certainty. Humanity, once again, proves it has no bounds when killing to protect what never belonged to them—what never belonged to anyone.
A kiss is condemned. A bullet is worshipped.
Snow becomes a symbol of purity—a lie we’ve told ourselves for centuries. It isn’t clean. It’s sickness falling from the sky, covering rot, so we don’t have to look at it.
History repeats. Not as a metaphor. As policy.
And the book leaves us with a question that refuses to sit quietly:
Are we already living in the dystopia?
WRITTEN: 29 January 2026
October 1, 2025
genuinely crazy (in a good way). so glad i stuck it out. in the beginning i was so overwhelmed, but GOD it pays off. i ate it up.
April 6, 2025
3.5 stars rounded up to 4
White World by Saad T. Farooqi is a gripping dystopian novel set in a fractured, war-torn Pakistan. As a Pakistani reader, I was genuinely excited to read a story that tackles dystopian themes in a setting that feels so close to home—something we don’t often see in speculative fiction. And I have to say, I nearly fainted when I received a free signed copy of the book—huge thanks to Cormorant Books for such an amazing surprise!
The story follows Avaan, a young man navigating a brutal regime and the moral compromises that come with simply trying to survive. The world Farooqi builds is stark and unrelenting, and the writing pulls you into a reality that feels both dystopian and disturbingly plausible.
One of the standout elements of the book is the character development. Avaan’s internal conflict and transformation are central to the narrative—he changes as the world pushes him, breaks him, and reshapes him. But at the same time, I found myself wishing there was a bit more hope, or at least a redeemable quality in his character. The bleakness is powerful, but it also left me emotionally heavy by the end, craving even a small flicker of light in all the darkness.
That said, White World is a bold and thought-provoking novel. It challenges readers with uncomfortable truths and deep moral questions, especially relevant in today’s world. If you’re looking for something that doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of power, violence, and survival, this is a book that will stay with you.
White World by Saad T. Farooqi is a gripping dystopian novel set in a fractured, war-torn Pakistan. As a Pakistani reader, I was genuinely excited to read a story that tackles dystopian themes in a setting that feels so close to home—something we don’t often see in speculative fiction. And I have to say, I nearly fainted when I received a free signed copy of the book—huge thanks to Cormorant Books for such an amazing surprise!
The story follows Avaan, a young man navigating a brutal regime and the moral compromises that come with simply trying to survive. The world Farooqi builds is stark and unrelenting, and the writing pulls you into a reality that feels both dystopian and disturbingly plausible.
One of the standout elements of the book is the character development. Avaan’s internal conflict and transformation are central to the narrative—he changes as the world pushes him, breaks him, and reshapes him. But at the same time, I found myself wishing there was a bit more hope, or at least a redeemable quality in his character. The bleakness is powerful, but it also left me emotionally heavy by the end, craving even a small flicker of light in all the darkness.
That said, White World is a bold and thought-provoking novel. It challenges readers with uncomfortable truths and deep moral questions, especially relevant in today’s world. If you’re looking for something that doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of power, violence, and survival, this is a book that will stay with you.
February 12, 2025
My review from The Miramichi Reader:
The sky has burned away and an ash-like snow covers everything. Beyond the tumult, there is a beautiful, safe, opulent land, walled away from the rabble. What does it take to escape a hell and get into that heaven?
This is the world to which Saad T. Farooqi brings us, his dark future, his White World. Farooqi takes us to a post-apocalyptic Pakistan, where a war is waging, democracy has fallen away and a brutal military dictatorship pushes an ethno-nationalist agenda. His characters navigate rigid social structures and the hazards of their birth and station, while facing a consortium of powers that control Old Pakistan, from the military to gangsters and hitmen.
White World feels like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or the film The Book of Eli—a lone warrior’s journey through the post-apocalypse. The story flows with the feeling of role-playing videogame, with each character constantly itemizing bullets or food, always aware of their rank in the hierarchy around them.
Caught between several agendas, that of his boss, the military and the resistance, the principal character, Avaan, is on a personal quest of his own, seeking out his lost love, Doua. The story transitions from role-playing videogame to first-person shooter, bringing the ballistic energy of the John Wick films to each page. The tension and frenzy of the action sequences works partially because Farooqi keeps us so close to the narrator’s body. We follow Avaan, who, through a kind of death and rebirth in the post-apocalyptic world, has become a hitman for a ganglord controlling a territory within Old Pakistan. We feel his Colt .45 tucked in the back of his jeans, as though its weight and pressure were against our own midback. We feel his tension in the seconds before he must draw his gun faster than his opponents or die.
Told from multiple perspectives, we experience the aftermath of an apocalyptic disaster and the rise of the military-backed ethno-nationalist regime. The weight of military power combined with the pervading social authority of religion pushes down on the characters like gravity. Diversity of gender, sexuality and religion is made both unpatriotic and blasphemous. From Partition in 1947 and through Pakistan’s vacillations from democracy to military dictatorship and back, we see threads of history stretched into a post-apocalyptic future. Readers learn about Pakistani history, but also recognize the ethno-nationalist and authoritarian trends sweeping across the globe as the characters confront the enforcement of gender identities, rigid class hierarchies and religious supremacy.
White World makes the idea of the wandering hero in a dystopia feel fresh again. Farooqi creates a world that is fully wrought, his characters fleshed-out, and their desires nuanced yet genuine.
White World makes the idea of the wandering hero in a dystopia feel fresh again. Farooqi creates a world that is fully wrought, his characters fleshed-out, and their desires nuanced yet genuine. Books of this genre are often built in one of two ways: either from some lofty concept or from a grounded foundation. Farooqi’s debut novel is less a tale about a disaster and the dystopian aftermath, and more a story about survival and perseverance. It allows character development to take the story in interesting directions, without succumbing to genre formulas. White World’s blend of action, adventure, passion and compassion make it a gripping read.
The sky has burned away and an ash-like snow covers everything. Beyond the tumult, there is a beautiful, safe, opulent land, walled away from the rabble. What does it take to escape a hell and get into that heaven?
This is the world to which Saad T. Farooqi brings us, his dark future, his White World. Farooqi takes us to a post-apocalyptic Pakistan, where a war is waging, democracy has fallen away and a brutal military dictatorship pushes an ethno-nationalist agenda. His characters navigate rigid social structures and the hazards of their birth and station, while facing a consortium of powers that control Old Pakistan, from the military to gangsters and hitmen.
White World feels like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or the film The Book of Eli—a lone warrior’s journey through the post-apocalypse. The story flows with the feeling of role-playing videogame, with each character constantly itemizing bullets or food, always aware of their rank in the hierarchy around them.
Caught between several agendas, that of his boss, the military and the resistance, the principal character, Avaan, is on a personal quest of his own, seeking out his lost love, Doua. The story transitions from role-playing videogame to first-person shooter, bringing the ballistic energy of the John Wick films to each page. The tension and frenzy of the action sequences works partially because Farooqi keeps us so close to the narrator’s body. We follow Avaan, who, through a kind of death and rebirth in the post-apocalyptic world, has become a hitman for a ganglord controlling a territory within Old Pakistan. We feel his Colt .45 tucked in the back of his jeans, as though its weight and pressure were against our own midback. We feel his tension in the seconds before he must draw his gun faster than his opponents or die.
Told from multiple perspectives, we experience the aftermath of an apocalyptic disaster and the rise of the military-backed ethno-nationalist regime. The weight of military power combined with the pervading social authority of religion pushes down on the characters like gravity. Diversity of gender, sexuality and religion is made both unpatriotic and blasphemous. From Partition in 1947 and through Pakistan’s vacillations from democracy to military dictatorship and back, we see threads of history stretched into a post-apocalyptic future. Readers learn about Pakistani history, but also recognize the ethno-nationalist and authoritarian trends sweeping across the globe as the characters confront the enforcement of gender identities, rigid class hierarchies and religious supremacy.
White World makes the idea of the wandering hero in a dystopia feel fresh again. Farooqi creates a world that is fully wrought, his characters fleshed-out, and their desires nuanced yet genuine.
White World makes the idea of the wandering hero in a dystopia feel fresh again. Farooqi creates a world that is fully wrought, his characters fleshed-out, and their desires nuanced yet genuine. Books of this genre are often built in one of two ways: either from some lofty concept or from a grounded foundation. Farooqi’s debut novel is less a tale about a disaster and the dystopian aftermath, and more a story about survival and perseverance. It allows character development to take the story in interesting directions, without succumbing to genre formulas. White World’s blend of action, adventure, passion and compassion make it a gripping read.
September 7, 2025
DNF - I stuck it out for 102 pages, so I really tried with this because the reviews were all good, but it didn’t work for me. There’s a lot of world building and lots of action (violence and killings) but not much in the way of plot, and I didn’t find the main character engaging in any way. I also got tired of every person being a bastard, or Bastard for a bit of variation. Every person Avaan meets is a Fat Bastard, a Tall bastard, etc etc. - a writing tic which quickly became tedious. Or maybe it’s a reflection on Avaan? Who knows
September 29, 2024
Oh man this book was unexpectedly visceral. From the dystopian descriptors of a post apocalyptic Pakistan to the violent action to the bigotry at times depicted. There was some bits of much appreciated humour, but this book was a powerhouse of some deep themes. A page turner for sure!
January 28, 2025
I enjoyed how the novel was written from different characters' point of view - it made the book a page-turner. Amazing world-building, and a lovely lyrical quality to the writing. The book is definitely unique. Looking forward to more from this author!
January 4, 2025
Review to come.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews