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The Book of Death
About the Book
THIS MASTERPIECE HAS A STORY WITHIN A STORY
The narrator who opens it goes to Gilgitia Til Mas to research whether two multinational firms could set up steel plants there. He finds out that years before this, an international archaeological institute had sent a six-member team to this region, where a small city named Girgita Til Mas existed about two hundred years ago. It was particularly renowned for a mental asylum. The city was purposefully submerged in water for the construction of a hydroelectric dam by the central government.
However, due to the ecological imbalance, all the rivers in the region either dried up or changed their courses. Mountainous terrain transformed into plains, and the power plant became as useless as a limb without function, so it was demolished. The city resurfaced with its ruins and debris. It was established that a mental asylum existed at this site once. The narrator found a manuscript among its ruins, which is at the heart of this novel.
Interested in ancient manuscripts, the narrator sets out to decipher a madman's diary, a man who suffered a severe injury to his head in his mother's womb at the hands of his violent father. This diary is the story within the story. As it unravels, our second narrator's relationship with his abusive father, his constant companion, the idea of self-harm, the two women in his life, and the terrifying void that swirls around him, introduces us to the most striking aspect of Khalid Jawed's the crackling mix of metaphysics and banality.
About the Author
Khalid Jawed is one of the leading Urdu novelists of our times. He is the author of fifteen works of fiction and non-fiction, and is a recipient of the Katha Award, the Upendranath Ashk Award and the UP Urdu Academy Award. He is a professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University.
Khalid Jawed was awarded the JCB Prize for Literature (2022) for the English translation of his book Nemat Khana translated as The Paradise of Food.
About the Translator
Recipient of Delhi Urdu Academy and Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy Translation Awards, A. Naseeb Khan is a bilingual poet, translator and author. His publications include translations of over eight hundred couplets of Ghalib's Urdu poetry, included in the Evolution of Ghalib, published by Rupa Publications, translation of ten Urdu stories by Premchand, included in a volume of Premchand's stories, published by Penguin India, translations of eleven Urdu stories by Tariq Chhatari, published as The Nameplate, translations of Urdu stories and critical writings, included in collections published by Katha and Routledge, and translations of Urdu stories published in Indian Literature. His translation of Akhri Sawariyan by S.M. Ashraf will be published as The Last Rides.
THIS MASTERPIECE HAS A STORY WITHIN A STORY
The narrator who opens it goes to Gilgitia Til Mas to research whether two multinational firms could set up steel plants there. He finds out that years before this, an international archaeological institute had sent a six-member team to this region, where a small city named Girgita Til Mas existed about two hundred years ago. It was particularly renowned for a mental asylum. The city was purposefully submerged in water for the construction of a hydroelectric dam by the central government.
However, due to the ecological imbalance, all the rivers in the region either dried up or changed their courses. Mountainous terrain transformed into plains, and the power plant became as useless as a limb without function, so it was demolished. The city resurfaced with its ruins and debris. It was established that a mental asylum existed at this site once. The narrator found a manuscript among its ruins, which is at the heart of this novel.
Interested in ancient manuscripts, the narrator sets out to decipher a madman's diary, a man who suffered a severe injury to his head in his mother's womb at the hands of his violent father. This diary is the story within the story. As it unravels, our second narrator's relationship with his abusive father, his constant companion, the idea of self-harm, the two women in his life, and the terrifying void that swirls around him, introduces us to the most striking aspect of Khalid Jawed's the crackling mix of metaphysics and banality.
About the Author
Khalid Jawed is one of the leading Urdu novelists of our times. He is the author of fifteen works of fiction and non-fiction, and is a recipient of the Katha Award, the Upendranath Ashk Award and the UP Urdu Academy Award. He is a professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University.
Khalid Jawed was awarded the JCB Prize for Literature (2022) for the English translation of his book Nemat Khana translated as The Paradise of Food.
About the Translator
Recipient of Delhi Urdu Academy and Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy Translation Awards, A. Naseeb Khan is a bilingual poet, translator and author. His publications include translations of over eight hundred couplets of Ghalib's Urdu poetry, included in the Evolution of Ghalib, published by Rupa Publications, translation of ten Urdu stories by Premchand, included in a volume of Premchand's stories, published by Penguin India, translations of eleven Urdu stories by Tariq Chhatari, published as The Nameplate, translations of Urdu stories and critical writings, included in collections published by Katha and Routledge, and translations of Urdu stories published in Indian Literature. His translation of Akhri Sawariyan by S.M. Ashraf will be published as The Last Rides.
104 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 24, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 8, 2025
📜‘This shall not last for ever.'
True for life, death and every terrible and beautiful thing in between indeed.
📜This was a sad, melancholic 'hopelessly gloomy' read, much of it was about the dark side of life and the shadows.
📜There was a lot of use of personification
📜I liked the metaphorical language used throughout the book such as in : 'all of my sins were like fruits with stones '
📜The book also talks of spirituality, the metaphysical, the existential questions of life and death and everything in between, love and lust, sin and virtue, profound grief, God and Satan/ devil, human relationships and the dream world.
📜 Book reads like a feverish dream and hallucinations of a despairing madman
📜The narrator's extreme suffering is difficult to even read, much less imagine.
📜The last chapter of the novel is titled but is a blank page, was intriguing, mentioned in the dedication too.
📜Parts are specially relatable to someone going through depression, mental health issues, sleep/ dream problems etc.
📜My 🤎favorite excerpts:
🤎Love always finds itself ensnared in misunderstanding.
🤎The bitterness of this relationship became apparent to me only later, much the same way a bitter taste is felt only when it hits the back of the tongue.
🤎soul – the poor soul, whose idiom is meticulously written in the language of love and light constantly seeks its due attention, stuttering like an ignored tenant within the body
🤎How long should I go on scrubbing this utensil clean? My ancient soul clings to the shameful utensil of grief like a rotting roti stuck to a pot.
📩I read the Kindle Edition.
Trigger ⚠️warning: suicide,anxiety, depression, domestic violence, suicidal ideation, blood and gore scene,animal/dog violence, childhood trauma/ abuse,violence and torture scenes.
True for life, death and every terrible and beautiful thing in between indeed.
📜This was a sad, melancholic 'hopelessly gloomy' read, much of it was about the dark side of life and the shadows.
📜There was a lot of use of personification
📜I liked the metaphorical language used throughout the book such as in : 'all of my sins were like fruits with stones '
📜The book also talks of spirituality, the metaphysical, the existential questions of life and death and everything in between, love and lust, sin and virtue, profound grief, God and Satan/ devil, human relationships and the dream world.
📜 Book reads like a feverish dream and hallucinations of a despairing madman
📜The narrator's extreme suffering is difficult to even read, much less imagine.
📜The last chapter of the novel is titled but is a blank page, was intriguing, mentioned in the dedication too.
📜Parts are specially relatable to someone going through depression, mental health issues, sleep/ dream problems etc.
📜My 🤎favorite excerpts:
🤎Love always finds itself ensnared in misunderstanding.
🤎The bitterness of this relationship became apparent to me only later, much the same way a bitter taste is felt only when it hits the back of the tongue.
🤎soul – the poor soul, whose idiom is meticulously written in the language of love and light constantly seeks its due attention, stuttering like an ignored tenant within the body
🤎How long should I go on scrubbing this utensil clean? My ancient soul clings to the shameful utensil of grief like a rotting roti stuck to a pot.
📩I read the Kindle Edition.
Trigger ⚠️warning: suicide,anxiety, depression, domestic violence, suicidal ideation, blood and gore scene,animal/dog violence, childhood trauma/ abuse,violence and torture scenes.
February 2, 2026
It started off really well and had me completely intrigued. The opening pages talk about a person who finds a manuscript in a deserted city in Madhya Pradesh—a city that was submerged because of a dam, and which once housed a mental asylum. The manuscript is found in surprisingly good condition, with all its pages intact, and the story then revolves around what’s written in it. That premise sounded fascinating, and I was genuinely excited to see where it would go.
But oh my God—it was painfully boring. I honestly couldn’t understand what the author was trying to say. Maybe it was too philosophical for me, or too heavy on metaphors. I really dislike books where you’re expected to interpret every single sentence. If you have something to say, just say it directly. Why wrap everything in layers of metaphor? In this book especially, it felt like every single line was metaphorical, and it completely lost me.
But oh my God—it was painfully boring. I honestly couldn’t understand what the author was trying to say. Maybe it was too philosophical for me, or too heavy on metaphors. I really dislike books where you’re expected to interpret every single sentence. If you have something to say, just say it directly. Why wrap everything in layers of metaphor? In this book especially, it felt like every single line was metaphorical, and it completely lost me.
January 29, 2026
Hypnotic and grotesque, also a nearly perfect ode to Kristeva's concept of abjection.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews