Drinking the Ocean

by Saad Omar Khan

The day after his thirty-third birthday, Murad spots a familiar face at a crowded intersection in downtown Toronto. Shocked, he stands silently as Sofi, a woman he'd fallen in love with almost a decade ago, walks by holding the hand of a small child. Murad turns and descends the subway steps to return home to his wife as the past washes over him and he is taken back to the first time they met. Moving between Lahore, London and Toronto, Drinking the Ocean is a story of connections lost and found and of the many kinds of love that shape a life, whether familial, romantic or spiritual. As Murad's and Sofi's lives touch and separate, we see them encounter challenges with relationships, family and God, and struggle with the complexities facing Muslims in the West. With compassion and elegance, Saad Omar Khan delicately illuminates the arcs of these two haunted lives, moved by fate and by love, as they absorb the impact of their personal spiritual journeys.

Genres: Canada

288 pages, Paperback

Published May 6, 2025

Reviews

[Whatithinkaboutthisbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review Drinking The Ocean by Saad Omar Khan

A fated love never meant to be, feelings of emptiness, and feeling adrift and an innate sadness, a bonding prayer, and god as a source of unconditional love that provides peace and fills that emptiness

A love story about learning to love from afar and to be grateful for the impact of the time you had together. A story of coming of age when one is bereft with grief and the other is full of loneliness and depression.

One turning away from prayer and god and the other finding solace and a deeper connection.

This is a beautifully written story that captures the essence of loneliness and longing for connection in a soulful manner. The prose resonates with your heart. The struggle to find a meaningful life is embodied differently by each of them as is their spiritual journey.

The exploration of a meaningful life and happiness and purpose within the context of spirituality, familial and cultural expectations was moving and make you ponder your own connections.

This is a profoundly moving book that will make you reflect on your own life and spirituality.

Thank you to River Street Writing, Buckrider Books and Wolsak and Wynn Publishing for the chance to read this book and the opportunity to provide my honest opinion.

[Alison Gadsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Murad sees Sofi for the first time since a chance encounter at a wedding years earlier, his heart opens to reveal the empty place where he had hidden his deep love, where he had tried to hide Sofi away. Seeing her triggers memories of the short but intense time they spent together in London. We’re then given Sofi’s life, her experiences of loss, her brother’s death, of her parents’ divorce, of searching for someone who might take her away from death.

We’re offered both Murad and Sofi’s perspectives on a love destined to be unrequited, if not completely unexplored. With striking, poetic, and deeply spiritual language, Khan gives us a love story, but also a life story, one that considers our deep connection to family, to oneself and to God, a story that asks, how do we continue to move forward? The novel explores mental illness, loneliness and grief with heartbreaking accuracy.

There is an emptiness we all carry, and while many of us try to fill it with love, faith, experiences and more, it is something we all share. Loneliness isn’t found in aloneness, but in the deep losses we each experience at some point in our lives. For Sofi, it is the space she holds for her dead brother, for Murad, it is the space he keeps empty for Sofi and his struggle with depression. Perhaps bigger than the question of how do we move forward, is how do we hold all the emptiness, the spaces that can never be filled and still seek happiness? Reading DRINKING THE OCEAN, I am left feeling optimistic, that with connection to one another or to God, there is hope, and the potential to find peace and happiness for all of us.

[Jane Mulkewich · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The day after his thirty-third birthday, Murad spots a familiar face in a crowded intersection in downtown Toronto"... A book about finding true connection with another human being, beyond the superficial. Two main characters, Murad and Sofi, who struggle with depression and/or loss of a loved one; who struggle to find meaning, in their relationships with faith / with God, and with a significant other. They have a spark with each other, but will they connect? The book weaves between their two perspectives, and back and forth in time and space, and the reader becomes invested in hoping they both find happiness and contentment.

[Brina Romanek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, I was hooked three chapters in, but I have to admit I struggled with the message of this book. The way both familial and religious honour and guilt locked Murad into a life of the mundane was a heavy pill to swallow.

I have been the Saskia in this novel, and the lack of accountability that Murad had with most of the women in his life made it hard to like him or agree with his decisions by the end of the book. At the end of the day no matter your spirituality, I believe that people should lead their life with integrity and honesty and be true to themselves. I’m not sure Murad ever got there…

I really appreciate all of the questions around morality, spirituality and love that the author brought up. A testament to a book written with a lot of love and care.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love comes in many forms and can strike when we least expect it. In his compassionate, insightful and deeply moving novel, Drinking the Ocean, Saad Omar Khan follows the trajectory of a love that becomes, for those involved, a spiritual journey of self-discovery.

When we first meet him, Murad has just turned 33 and is living in Toronto. He works in a bank and has been married to Samra for almost seven years. They have not been able to have children, and this failure is, for them and their parents, who expected their twilight years to be blessed with the joyous presence of grandchildren, a persistent source of unhappiness. With seemingly no other choice, Murad and Samra have resigned themselves to their fate as a childless couple. Murad has even convinced himself that their future can still be one of contentment.

But one day, as he’s crossing a busy street downtown, he glimpses Sofi in the company of a small boy. With no warning the past rushes in, flooding him with longing and regret, shattering his faith in the diminished future that he and Samra are facing.

Khan’s narrative shifts to 2006, to Murad and Sofi’s initial encounter when both were attending university in the UK. During his student years in London, Murad is a melancholic loner taking anti-depressants to fend off the blues. Surrounded by people in a crowded city, he spends most of his time alone. And yet he covets the ease with which his fellow students interact, socializing effortlessly and enjoying each other’s company. Murad, invited to events and casual get-togethers, stands stiff and awkward listening to the flow of conversation but rarely joining in. It is Sofi who approaches him one evening in early January, where he’s sitting by himself outside the library. She does this because, as she tells him, “You look sad.” A few days later they meet for coffee. For Murad, Sofi’s sympathetic presence is a balm for his troubled soul. He is more at ease with her than with anyone else he knows. Trusting her with his secrets, he opens up. Their relationship progresses through the school term, a chaste friendship full of vibrant conversation, personal disclosures and mutual support. But Murad falls in love too quickly. And in love as in life, there are always complications. When he discovers Sofi already has a boyfriend and failed to tell him—from his perspective, she’s been leading him on—he suffers the sting of betrayal and shuts down on her.

In the next section we learn of Sofi’s struggles and vulnerabilities—parents separated, lingering guilt over her younger brother’s death in a traffic accident. Despite beauty and an air of confidence, she is profoundly unsure of herself and has no idea what she wants from life. Yes, she has a boyfriend, but the bond that links them is loose and their needs and desires don’t always coalesce. For Sofi, Murad comes along at a prefect time. He’s a friend she can talk to without reservation, and, she hopes, with no strings attached.

A brief review can only skim the surface of this assured debut novel. Drinking the Ocean is as complex and surprising as life itself. Saad Omar Khan writes like a seasoned veteran, delving fearlessly into his characters’ shifting emotional states, which are portrayed with the authenticity of lived experience, and never descending into melodrama. From start to finish Khan’s prose is tightly controlled, pleasingly atmospheric, eminently readable, and never a distraction. But the stars of this bittersweet tale are Murad and Sofi, whose connection with one another—source of both solace and pain—will haunt them for the rest of their days.

[Sheelagh Caygill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful and engrossing debut novel exploring the relationship between the two protagonists, and expectations, projections, differences and sadness that fill their connection, and then their reconnection in later years. Drinking the ocean is a well-balanced novel, with well-defined characters and lovely writing.

Listen to my interview with the author here:
https://www.oncreativewriting.com/pod...