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The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn
"The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn" by Usman T. Malik is a fantasy novella about a disenchanted young Pakistani professor who grew up and lives in the United States, but is haunted by the magical, mystical tales his grandfather told him of a princess and a Jinn who lived in Lahore when the grandfather was a boy.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
77 pages, ebook
First published April 22, 2015
11 people are currently reading
1229 people want to read
About the author
Usman T. Malik
55 books109 followersUsman T. Malik is a Pakistani vagrant camped in Florida. He reads Sufi poetry, likes long walks, and occasionally strums naats on the guitar.
His fiction has won the Bram Stoker Award and been nominated for the Nebula. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, The Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Tor.com, The Apex Book of World SF, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, and Black Static among other venues. He is a graduate of Clarion West.
In Dec 2014, Usman led Pakistan’s first speculative fiction workshop in Lahore in conjunction with Desi Writers Lounge and Liberty Books.
His fiction has won the Bram Stoker Award and been nominated for the Nebula. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, The Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Tor.com, The Apex Book of World SF, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, and Black Static among other venues. He is a graduate of Clarion West.
In Dec 2014, Usman led Pakistan’s first speculative fiction workshop in Lahore in conjunction with Desi Writers Lounge and Liberty Books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
July 30, 2016
I'd heard good things about this story before reading it, and it lived up to all of them.
Our narrator grew up hearing stories from his grandfather about the dethroned Mughal princess he knew, living in poverty, running a tea shop in Pakistan which has protected by a jinn. Those tales didn't seem significant to him until his grandfather dies, and he goes back to Florida for the funeral, from his job as a professor in the Northeast. Among his grandfather's effects he finds a journal which will lead him to Lahore, in search of a mysterious and secret treasure.
The story seamlessly melds Indiana Jones-style adventure with philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, and with a sharply-drawn, contemporary depiction of the relationships between lovers, communication between generations, and the difficulties of the immigrant experience. Yes, it's a lot to take on in one short story, but it all works perfectly.
My one quibble? I've always had a fundamental objection to stories where This story does that with acknowledgement of this problem - but it does it anyway. And I still didn't love that aspect. But I still loved the story. It's amazing. Read it!
Our narrator grew up hearing stories from his grandfather about the dethroned Mughal princess he knew, living in poverty, running a tea shop in Pakistan which has protected by a jinn. Those tales didn't seem significant to him until his grandfather dies, and he goes back to Florida for the funeral, from his job as a professor in the Northeast. Among his grandfather's effects he finds a journal which will lead him to Lahore, in search of a mysterious and secret treasure.
The story seamlessly melds Indiana Jones-style adventure with philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, and with a sharply-drawn, contemporary depiction of the relationships between lovers, communication between generations, and the difficulties of the immigrant experience. Yes, it's a lot to take on in one short story, but it all works perfectly.
My one quibble? I've always had a fundamental objection to stories where This story does that with acknowledgement of this problem - but it does it anyway. And I still didn't love that aspect. But I still loved the story. It's amazing. Read it!
April 11, 2016
Final review, first posted at www.FantasyLiterature.com:
This nominee for the 2015 Nebula award begins as a Pakistani folk tale type of fantasy. The narrator is a young boy (later young man) born in the U.S. who is entranced by his immigrant grandfather’s tales of a destitute Pakistani princess who befriended the grandfather when he was young. The princess’ small tea stall outside the walled city of Lahore is looked over (in more ways than one) by a jinn who lives in a nearby eucalyptus tree. When the tree and the tea stall are both destroyed by a fire, the Mughal princess moves far away, but tells her young friend of something secret buried under the stump of the eucalyptus tree ― something that is not intended for human eyes.
When his grandfather later dies, the grandson, now a professor of comparative mythology, reads his grandfather’s journal and becomes obsessed with the idea of going to Pakistan to track down what actually happened with his grandfather and the princess… and to try to find out what was hidden under that eucalyptus tree.
Pakistani characters and culture are in the forefront of this novella, giving it an unusual and highly creative flavor. I didn’t notice on first read that, although the grandfather’s stories are about a pauper princess, the title of this novella refers to the “Pauper Prince,” an interesting choice that’s indicative of a plot turn later in the story. This is also a rather mind-bending turn from folk tale to metaphysical science fiction with cosmic implications. I’m not sure I completely followed it there at the end, but I give it major props for breaking the mold and challenging my brain.
This novella is free online at Tor.com: http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
This nominee for the 2015 Nebula award begins as a Pakistani folk tale type of fantasy. The narrator is a young boy (later young man) born in the U.S. who is entranced by his immigrant grandfather’s tales of a destitute Pakistani princess who befriended the grandfather when he was young. The princess’ small tea stall outside the walled city of Lahore is looked over (in more ways than one) by a jinn who lives in a nearby eucalyptus tree. When the tree and the tea stall are both destroyed by a fire, the Mughal princess moves far away, but tells her young friend of something secret buried under the stump of the eucalyptus tree ― something that is not intended for human eyes.
When his grandfather later dies, the grandson, now a professor of comparative mythology, reads his grandfather’s journal and becomes obsessed with the idea of going to Pakistan to track down what actually happened with his grandfather and the princess… and to try to find out what was hidden under that eucalyptus tree.
Pakistani characters and culture are in the forefront of this novella, giving it an unusual and highly creative flavor. I didn’t notice on first read that, although the grandfather’s stories are about a pauper princess, the title of this novella refers to the “Pauper Prince,” an interesting choice that’s indicative of a plot turn later in the story. This is also a rather mind-bending turn from folk tale to metaphysical science fiction with cosmic implications. I’m not sure I completely followed it there at the end, but I give it major props for breaking the mold and challenging my brain.
This novella is free online at Tor.com: http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
May 28, 2017
"All good stories leave questions."
This was an enchanting and lyrical tale revovling around a grandson and his granfather. I really liked the weaving together of mythology and folklore.
This was an enchanting and lyrical tale revovling around a grandson and his granfather. I really liked the weaving together of mythology and folklore.
April 24, 2015
A richly developed, complex story about science, mythology, memory, history, culture, and family. I'm not sure I understood everything, but it was beautiful.
November 2, 2016
Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up
Robert Burns said it best when he wrote "To a Louse,On Seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet in Church":
Sal(man) is a young academic trying to make his way in the vicious world of Boston academia. (The smaller the stakes, the nastier the battle.) His Pakistani immigrant parents live in a Florida trailer park with his paternal grandfather. His escape from the life of the parental units was studying mythology and folktales, an interest sparked by the stories his Alzheimer's-addled grandfather told him. One story in particular, that of the Mughal princess who ran a tea stall next to a tree that housed a jinn—an elemental being, not a "genie" as the Western bastardization of the Islamic culture's mythology created—tied to the royal bloodline of the Mughals. Legend had it that the jinn protected the princess, and the princess the jinn.
One fine day, according to Gramps (such a very American way to address a grandfather, eh what?), a young boy in the neighborhood climbed the eucalyptus tree and fell from it, to be succored by the princess. This was the ignition of a chain of events that forms the rest of the novella. The eucalyptus is slated for destruction; then lightning strikes it. Secrets. Half-truths and outright lies, misdirection and redirection and tantalizingly vague non-endings to unending stories. And an ending to this tale that made me glow with rapturous pleasure.
Sal explores Gramps's journal and many books after his death. It is an amazement to him that there are so many, since they weren't there when he went away to school and then began his career. It also astonishes Sal that his grandfather annotated the books in such an erudite and academic manner. The old man worked in a 7-11 after emigrating to the US in the 1970s! Who knew he had such thoughts!
The discovery of his Gramps's treasure trove is the next propulsive event in the tale's amazing unfolding. Sal is so riveted by the reading he's doing, all of it a deep inquiry into Islamic folklore, that his Anglo-Saxon girlfriend feels and is neglected. When Sal gets into Gramps's annotations so deep that he puts together a revolutionary cosmology that emerges from all the information, he is impelled to visit (for the first time in his life) Lahore, Pakistan, Gramps's native city.
I can't now go any further into the events of the novella because, for once, *I* don't want to give spoilers! *ME* the king of "yeah, so?" about them! But please listen carefully: This is the single best ending-cum-wrapup of a story I've read this year.
If that doesn't tell you enough to make you run right over and procure the story to read, you haven't paid me much attention. I am almost uniformly disappointed in endings. This one, not at all; in fact, the diametric opposite of disappointed.
To Usman Malik I offer a humble, grateful salam.
Robert Burns said it best when he wrote "To a Louse,On Seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet in Church":
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
And ev’n Devotion!
Sal(man) is a young academic trying to make his way in the vicious world of Boston academia. (The smaller the stakes, the nastier the battle.) His Pakistani immigrant parents live in a Florida trailer park with his paternal grandfather. His escape from the life of the parental units was studying mythology and folktales, an interest sparked by the stories his Alzheimer's-addled grandfather told him. One story in particular, that of the Mughal princess who ran a tea stall next to a tree that housed a jinn—an elemental being, not a "genie" as the Western bastardization of the Islamic culture's mythology created—tied to the royal bloodline of the Mughals. Legend had it that the jinn protected the princess, and the princess the jinn.
One fine day, according to Gramps (such a very American way to address a grandfather, eh what?), a young boy in the neighborhood climbed the eucalyptus tree and fell from it, to be succored by the princess. This was the ignition of a chain of events that forms the rest of the novella. The eucalyptus is slated for destruction; then lightning strikes it. Secrets. Half-truths and outright lies, misdirection and redirection and tantalizingly vague non-endings to unending stories. And an ending to this tale that made me glow with rapturous pleasure.
Sal explores Gramps's journal and many books after his death. It is an amazement to him that there are so many, since they weren't there when he went away to school and then began his career. It also astonishes Sal that his grandfather annotated the books in such an erudite and academic manner. The old man worked in a 7-11 after emigrating to the US in the 1970s! Who knew he had such thoughts!
The discovery of his Gramps's treasure trove is the next propulsive event in the tale's amazing unfolding. Sal is so riveted by the reading he's doing, all of it a deep inquiry into Islamic folklore, that his Anglo-Saxon girlfriend feels and is neglected. When Sal gets into Gramps's annotations so deep that he puts together a revolutionary cosmology that emerges from all the information, he is impelled to visit (for the first time in his life) Lahore, Pakistan, Gramps's native city.
I can't now go any further into the events of the novella because, for once, *I* don't want to give spoilers! *ME* the king of "yeah, so?" about them! But please listen carefully: This is the single best ending-cum-wrapup of a story I've read this year.
If that doesn't tell you enough to make you run right over and procure the story to read, you haven't paid me much attention. I am almost uniformly disappointed in endings. This one, not at all; in fact, the diametric opposite of disappointed.
To Usman Malik I offer a humble, grateful salam.
August 27, 2021
Salman, born and being raised in the USA loves his Gramps' stories. His Gramps is fond of one story in particular and even has arguments with other people when they tell him that it's just an Urban legend. That same night, Salman's Gramps tells him the complete story but Salman is left with more questions than answers.
When Salman's Gramps dies and he returns home to attend his funeral, he comes across his Gramps' book and journal collection and becomes fascinated with all that was written and calligraphed by his Gramps. He starts to believe that the story about the Mughal princess was in fact real and the Mughal princess is none other than his grandma. Salman follows the clues left by his Gramps and travels to Lahore, Pakistan to get some answers.
I really liked the story at the beginning but then it started to bore me in between. In fact, I only read it just to get to the last few pages where everything is explained. I did like the writing and the fantasy and folklore part of it. I also liked the grandkid and grandparent relationship but other than that I didn't enjoy it as much as I had expected myself to after reading City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat from this writer.
3 stars
When Salman's Gramps dies and he returns home to attend his funeral, he comes across his Gramps' book and journal collection and becomes fascinated with all that was written and calligraphed by his Gramps. He starts to believe that the story about the Mughal princess was in fact real and the Mughal princess is none other than his grandma. Salman follows the clues left by his Gramps and travels to Lahore, Pakistan to get some answers.
I really liked the story at the beginning but then it started to bore me in between. In fact, I only read it just to get to the last few pages where everything is explained. I did like the writing and the fantasy and folklore part of it. I also liked the grandkid and grandparent relationship but other than that I didn't enjoy it as much as I had expected myself to after reading City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat from this writer.
3 stars
Want to read
December 4, 2024The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn | Usman T. Malik
April 10, 2017
As I was already reading The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories, I remembered also having this related short story in my to-read list. It really fits the above mentioned anthology about jinns and I would rate it 3.5/5★, rounded up to 4 here because of the star limitations.
Dislikes: although I liked the Islamic references, there were too many specific terms, hardly explained, that I had to look for on the internet, fragmenting and disrupting my reading; this made me think that the work was targeted to connoisseurs, an aspect that I don’t appreciate in a fantastical short story. Also, I’m not sure I totally got the cosmic implications and the end part..
"You can’t stare into the heart of the Unseen and not have it stare back at you."Likes: the writing, the cultural references, the mystycism, the historical component
Dislikes: although I liked the Islamic references, there were too many specific terms, hardly explained, that I had to look for on the internet, fragmenting and disrupting my reading; this made me think that the work was targeted to connoisseurs, an aspect that I don’t appreciate in a fantastical short story. Also, I’m not sure I totally got the cosmic implications and the end part..
November 7, 2016
A superb allegory about the rift between generations, about cultural inheritance and blood relations, about life and death, beliefs and faith, masterfully weaved from Islamic mythology and Quran words. Also superb writing, with vivid colours, descriptions and a bit (more) of magic. It totally melted my heart; maybe because I love One Thousand and One Nights from childhood and it has a bit of that flavor long gone :)
It can be read on tor.com: http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
It can be read on tor.com: http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
May 31, 2023
I think the best advice one can give to someone thinking about reading an Usman T. Malik story is a warning to be prepared for the crazy. Because just like his previous short story, this one made no sense.
To be fair, I did fairly enjoy his last story, even though it had passed right over my head. The writing, the characterization, the careful balancing of multiple genres, it was all very well done in The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family. In this case though, it doesn’t really work out.
For fifteen years my grandfather lived next door to the Mughal princess Zeenat Begum.
It starts off simple enough. Before going to sleep, a grandfather is telling his grandson a fairytale about a princess who sold tea in the grandfather’s neighbourhood. The night-time story has all the elements of a child’s fantasy tale: haunted trees, possessed children, and magical beings that protect the good and the noble. It’s interesting enough to keep the reader hooked for a while, especially a reader like me, who has spent the majority of her life reading North American authors, and so has basically had no exposure to fictional stories that casually mention Mughal rulers or the reign of the British in the subcontinent. Teenage-me loved her Wakefield twins and Hardy Boys, but I’m now starting to appreciate stories that are a bit closer to home.
A jinn protected the princess and her two sisters, a duty imposed by Akbar the Great five hundred years back.
The Mughal Princess, Zeenat Begum, has fallen into poverty after the fall of the Mughal empire, and runs a tea stall. More interestingly, she is rumoured to be protected by a jinn, a mystical being whose abode is the huge eucalyptus tree whose branches provide shade over Zeenat’s stall. Here is where our protagonist’s grandfather spends his days, talking to the princess and trying to figure out whether the jinn is real.
He had never really questioned the reality of her existence; lots of nawabs and princes of pre-Partition India had offspring languishing in poverty these days. An impoverished Mughal princess was conceivable.
A custodian jinn, not so much.
The fantastical elements of the story have a certain charm at the starting. There is such fun in this story telling, such pleasure taken in the way Usman Malik describes the jinn, or in the narrative he is setting up. At the beginning, you can almost see the author having fun with the story.
The description of the eucalyptus jinn varied seasonally. In summertime, his cheeks were scorched, his eyes red rimmed like the midday sun. Come winter, his lips were blue and his eyes misty, his touch cold like damp roots. On one thing everyone agreed: if he laid eyes on you, you were a goner.
But of course this only lasts a short while. A child gets injured near the tree, rumours spread of him being possessed by the jinn, he emits a seemingly inane statement (The lightning trees are dying), and soon adults are clamouring for the huge, years-old tree — probably a historical entity at this point — to be cut down.
“The tree,” said the officer, “needs to go.”
“Over my dead body,” said the princess. “It was planted by my forefathers. It’s a relic, it’s history.”
“It’s a public menace.”
Zeenat Begum tries to keep the tree safe but to no avail. Meanwhile the grandfather, young and worried about the princess, dreams about the eucalyptus jinn being flung through space and time. And then (spoilers ahead), before anyone can actually do more than argue about bringing the tree down, a lightning strike hits the eucalypstus and it blows up into a million pieces. No joke.
The eucalyptus exploded into a thousand pieces, the burning limbs crackling and sputtering in the thunderstorm that followed.
The Mughal Princess decides she’s had had enough of the crazy adults and besides, she misses the jinn meant to protect her forever and ever, so she decides to leave, but not before telling our nameless grandfather to dig under the tree at the right time to find ‘the map to the memory of heaven.’
“Something old and secret rests under that tree and it’s not for human eyes.”
I’m not making any of this up. At this point I was preparing myself mentally for the wacko, because I could already feel the weirdness creeping into the story. But fast forward into the future where our protagonist is involved in some very boring relationship drama and it all goes really outlandish.
“We’ve been together for three years and you still find excuses to steer me away from your family. This cultural thing that you claim to resent, you seem almost proud of it.”
It’s sad that the relationship drama is so incapable of keeping our attention, since our protagonist basically has no other real, valid interactions with anyone except his parents and his girlfriend, Sara. I found myself incapable of caring about Sara’s confusion or irritation when, upon the grandfather’s death, our protagonist discovers the grandfather’s journals and stumbles upon a new discovery.
Gramps thought jinns weren’t devil-horned creatures bound to a lamp or, for that matter, a tree.
They were flickers of cosmic consciousness.
Um. Okay. If you say so buddy. So now jinn are involved with the creation myth. Or rather, there’s a new creation myth. Our budding hero, bored with his boring, privileged life, sets off to ‘discover himself’, and along the way figure out what the hell his grandfather was talking about.
“Shut up,” I whispered. “He was senile. Must have been completely insane. I don’t believe a word of it.”
But when Sara came that evening, I told her I believed, I really did.
And this is the point where I must stop, because what happens when he reaches his grandfather’s homeland Pakistan, and what he finds there, was too much for my brain to take in.
The age of wonders shivered and died when the world changed.
Now I could argue that I was sleepy/work-burdened/unable to appreciate the apparently super complex mastery of what Usman Malik was trying to say. And all of these would be valid arguments. But also, the story really is seriously bizarre. I vaguely know there was something about a lot of jinn going on a Great Migration, and a cup of memory called the Jaam, and a carpet that glows, but beyond that I have no idea what really happened.
“The Jaam gave me much. Visions, power, perfect knowledge, but it cost me too. Quite a bit. You can’t stare into the heart of the Unseen and not have it stare back at you.”
But here’s the truly odd thing: Even with all the peculiarity, I wouldn’t mind recommending this weird, wacky story to people. Even though Usman Malik’s writing is strange and out of the ordinary, and I never understand the endings, it still makes for fun reading. It’s obvious that he knows how to write well — when he’s writing normal, everyday situations anyway. The stories might be odd, but they’re also very, very entertaining.
Recommendation
“All good stories leave questions.”
There are two major reasons why I would recommend this story: first, Usman Malik keeps his writing short and swift and to the point, but also, it’s a lot of fun to read. The short, sparse sentences are nicely balanced by the fascinating descriptions of places, people, and even magical entities. But here’s the appeal for the Pakistani reader: the desi references. Sprinkled randomly throughout this story you’ll find allusions to things like Juma pocket money or Sharbat. Things that we grew up with. Things we never hear the mention of within this genre. So if for nothing else then for the pleasure of hearing Rooh Afza mentioned, everyone should read this.
**
I review Pakistani Fiction, and talk about Pakistani fiction, and want to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter!
To be fair, I did fairly enjoy his last story, even though it had passed right over my head. The writing, the characterization, the careful balancing of multiple genres, it was all very well done in The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family. In this case though, it doesn’t really work out.
For fifteen years my grandfather lived next door to the Mughal princess Zeenat Begum.
It starts off simple enough. Before going to sleep, a grandfather is telling his grandson a fairytale about a princess who sold tea in the grandfather’s neighbourhood. The night-time story has all the elements of a child’s fantasy tale: haunted trees, possessed children, and magical beings that protect the good and the noble. It’s interesting enough to keep the reader hooked for a while, especially a reader like me, who has spent the majority of her life reading North American authors, and so has basically had no exposure to fictional stories that casually mention Mughal rulers or the reign of the British in the subcontinent. Teenage-me loved her Wakefield twins and Hardy Boys, but I’m now starting to appreciate stories that are a bit closer to home.
A jinn protected the princess and her two sisters, a duty imposed by Akbar the Great five hundred years back.
The Mughal Princess, Zeenat Begum, has fallen into poverty after the fall of the Mughal empire, and runs a tea stall. More interestingly, she is rumoured to be protected by a jinn, a mystical being whose abode is the huge eucalyptus tree whose branches provide shade over Zeenat’s stall. Here is where our protagonist’s grandfather spends his days, talking to the princess and trying to figure out whether the jinn is real.
He had never really questioned the reality of her existence; lots of nawabs and princes of pre-Partition India had offspring languishing in poverty these days. An impoverished Mughal princess was conceivable.
A custodian jinn, not so much.
The fantastical elements of the story have a certain charm at the starting. There is such fun in this story telling, such pleasure taken in the way Usman Malik describes the jinn, or in the narrative he is setting up. At the beginning, you can almost see the author having fun with the story.
The description of the eucalyptus jinn varied seasonally. In summertime, his cheeks were scorched, his eyes red rimmed like the midday sun. Come winter, his lips were blue and his eyes misty, his touch cold like damp roots. On one thing everyone agreed: if he laid eyes on you, you were a goner.
But of course this only lasts a short while. A child gets injured near the tree, rumours spread of him being possessed by the jinn, he emits a seemingly inane statement (The lightning trees are dying), and soon adults are clamouring for the huge, years-old tree — probably a historical entity at this point — to be cut down.
“The tree,” said the officer, “needs to go.”
“Over my dead body,” said the princess. “It was planted by my forefathers. It’s a relic, it’s history.”
“It’s a public menace.”
Zeenat Begum tries to keep the tree safe but to no avail. Meanwhile the grandfather, young and worried about the princess, dreams about the eucalyptus jinn being flung through space and time. And then (spoilers ahead), before anyone can actually do more than argue about bringing the tree down, a lightning strike hits the eucalypstus and it blows up into a million pieces. No joke.
The eucalyptus exploded into a thousand pieces, the burning limbs crackling and sputtering in the thunderstorm that followed.
The Mughal Princess decides she’s had had enough of the crazy adults and besides, she misses the jinn meant to protect her forever and ever, so she decides to leave, but not before telling our nameless grandfather to dig under the tree at the right time to find ‘the map to the memory of heaven.’
“Something old and secret rests under that tree and it’s not for human eyes.”
I’m not making any of this up. At this point I was preparing myself mentally for the wacko, because I could already feel the weirdness creeping into the story. But fast forward into the future where our protagonist is involved in some very boring relationship drama and it all goes really outlandish.
“We’ve been together for three years and you still find excuses to steer me away from your family. This cultural thing that you claim to resent, you seem almost proud of it.”
It’s sad that the relationship drama is so incapable of keeping our attention, since our protagonist basically has no other real, valid interactions with anyone except his parents and his girlfriend, Sara. I found myself incapable of caring about Sara’s confusion or irritation when, upon the grandfather’s death, our protagonist discovers the grandfather’s journals and stumbles upon a new discovery.
Gramps thought jinns weren’t devil-horned creatures bound to a lamp or, for that matter, a tree.
They were flickers of cosmic consciousness.
Um. Okay. If you say so buddy. So now jinn are involved with the creation myth. Or rather, there’s a new creation myth. Our budding hero, bored with his boring, privileged life, sets off to ‘discover himself’, and along the way figure out what the hell his grandfather was talking about.
“Shut up,” I whispered. “He was senile. Must have been completely insane. I don’t believe a word of it.”
But when Sara came that evening, I told her I believed, I really did.
And this is the point where I must stop, because what happens when he reaches his grandfather’s homeland Pakistan, and what he finds there, was too much for my brain to take in.
The age of wonders shivered and died when the world changed.
Now I could argue that I was sleepy/work-burdened/unable to appreciate the apparently super complex mastery of what Usman Malik was trying to say. And all of these would be valid arguments. But also, the story really is seriously bizarre. I vaguely know there was something about a lot of jinn going on a Great Migration, and a cup of memory called the Jaam, and a carpet that glows, but beyond that I have no idea what really happened.
“The Jaam gave me much. Visions, power, perfect knowledge, but it cost me too. Quite a bit. You can’t stare into the heart of the Unseen and not have it stare back at you.”
But here’s the truly odd thing: Even with all the peculiarity, I wouldn’t mind recommending this weird, wacky story to people. Even though Usman Malik’s writing is strange and out of the ordinary, and I never understand the endings, it still makes for fun reading. It’s obvious that he knows how to write well — when he’s writing normal, everyday situations anyway. The stories might be odd, but they’re also very, very entertaining.
Recommendation
“All good stories leave questions.”
There are two major reasons why I would recommend this story: first, Usman Malik keeps his writing short and swift and to the point, but also, it’s a lot of fun to read. The short, sparse sentences are nicely balanced by the fascinating descriptions of places, people, and even magical entities. But here’s the appeal for the Pakistani reader: the desi references. Sprinkled randomly throughout this story you’ll find allusions to things like Juma pocket money or Sharbat. Things that we grew up with. Things we never hear the mention of within this genre. So if for nothing else then for the pleasure of hearing Rooh Afza mentioned, everyone should read this.
**
I review Pakistani Fiction, and talk about Pakistani fiction, and want to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter!
March 22, 2019
TL;DR: 4.5 stars. Delightful novella about a professor of Pakistani descent and his surprising family history. PS: Way more than 32 pages.
This was excellent, and before I even finished it I was off searching to see if the author had any novels. Which sadly he does not. To which I say, WTF Tor? You published this in 2015, it got nom'd for a bunch of awards in 2016 and won a British Fantasy Award. Are you telling me you didn't sign this guy to a contract for at least 3 novels after that? Do better!
The only thing that keeps me from giving this a whole hearted 5 stars is I didn't love the ending. It made me think of Lovecraft, not so much in the content of the reveal as the handling of it and it's aftermath. I won't go into detail, but lets just say it does a few things I consider cop-outs. Ok, if you must know:
The story does have some major changes in feel as it shifts between the narrator's childhood memories, his present, and eventual investigation. The transition to the second part felt a bit weird to me, kind of like having one of those framing stories, but stuck in the middle, not at the ends.
One FYI: Both Amazon and Goodreads list this as 32 pages. I don't know how someone arrived at that number, but it's nonsense.
Word count on the text gives: 22,276 words
Some common word per page estimates:
/ 250 - manuscript gives
= ~89
/ 350 - adult mass market paperback gives
= ~64
So figure a more realistic page count of 60-90 depending on formatting.
This was excellent, and before I even finished it I was off searching to see if the author had any novels. Which sadly he does not. To which I say, WTF Tor? You published this in 2015, it got nom'd for a bunch of awards in 2016 and won a British Fantasy Award. Are you telling me you didn't sign this guy to a contract for at least 3 novels after that? Do better!
The only thing that keeps me from giving this a whole hearted 5 stars is I didn't love the ending. It made me think of Lovecraft, not so much in the content of the reveal as the handling of it and it's aftermath. I won't go into detail, but lets just say it does a few things I consider cop-outs. Ok, if you must know:
The story does have some major changes in feel as it shifts between the narrator's childhood memories, his present, and eventual investigation. The transition to the second part felt a bit weird to me, kind of like having one of those framing stories, but stuck in the middle, not at the ends.
One FYI: Both Amazon and Goodreads list this as 32 pages. I don't know how someone arrived at that number, but it's nonsense.
Word count on the text gives: 22,276 words
Some common word per page estimates:
/ 250 - manuscript gives
= ~89
/ 350 - adult mass market paperback gives
= ~64
So figure a more realistic page count of 60-90 depending on formatting.
May 15, 2017
"a work of speculative fiction that explores Indian subcontinental folklore and Islamic metaphysics"
This short story was nominated for a Nebula award and won the 2016 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella. And rightly so. Beautifully written, very poetic and dreamlike. Old east meets new west in a story that could have come out of 1001 Arabic nights. Or maybe not, the settings in Pakistan feel too real. Fascinating take on Jinns, memories, consciousness and relationships.
Available here:
http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
This short story was nominated for a Nebula award and won the 2016 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella. And rightly so. Beautifully written, very poetic and dreamlike. Old east meets new west in a story that could have come out of 1001 Arabic nights. Or maybe not, the settings in Pakistan feel too real. Fascinating take on Jinns, memories, consciousness and relationships.
Available here:
http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
November 8, 2017
Beautifully written story of a grandfather and his grandson and the stories and myths, and secrets, binding them together. (The grandson's girlfriend gets to be the thankless, sensible one who reminds the main character of his responsibilities when the main character decides to solve the mystery of his grandfather's life.)
April 29, 2016
Great novella. Great voice. Great atmosphere. Really enjoyed it, albeit a tad predictable.
October 29, 2020
I'm positive I read this two or three years ago.
Maybe it was in some other collection, although I thought Tor was particular about rights...
Maybe it was in some other collection, although I thought Tor was particular about rights...
March 22, 2016
This review can also be found in my blog: http://wp.me/p7a9pe-gC
Despite being only 32 pages long, The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn manages to enchant with a touching tale of a grandfather and grandson who grow closer together through the power of storytelling and fantastical family secrets.
The story follows a young Pakistani professor, Salman, who as a boy was fascinated by the tales his grandfather (affectionately called Gramps) told him during his childhood. In particular, the story of a pauper princess and a Jinn who lived near a large eucalyptus tree in Lahore, Pakistan captured his imagination. After his Gramps' death, however, Salman discovered that all those tales may have been more than fables and that his grandfather's life was much more complex and interesting than he had ever imagined.
I must admit that even though I found the story to be well-written and its incorporation of Islamic mythology and folklore to be fascinating, the overall reading experience wasn't as fun as I expected. The story actually seems to run longer than its 32 pages would lead one to expect, yet I found it difficult to connect with the protagonist for intangible reasons I can't describe.
The story does open promisingly with the spellbinding tales of Gramps' childhood but ends on a predictable note. However, there's plenty to like. Specifically, I enjoyed reading about Muslim characters in magical and mystical tales. This is where I want Fantasy to be heading -- towards a more inclusive and diverse future. Overall, I left the story with the satisfied feeling of time well-spent. I must recommend this enchanting little novella because it only costs $0.99, can be read in one sitting, and explores interesting mythology that's unfamiliar to western audiences.
Despite being only 32 pages long, The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn manages to enchant with a touching tale of a grandfather and grandson who grow closer together through the power of storytelling and fantastical family secrets.
The story follows a young Pakistani professor, Salman, who as a boy was fascinated by the tales his grandfather (affectionately called Gramps) told him during his childhood. In particular, the story of a pauper princess and a Jinn who lived near a large eucalyptus tree in Lahore, Pakistan captured his imagination. After his Gramps' death, however, Salman discovered that all those tales may have been more than fables and that his grandfather's life was much more complex and interesting than he had ever imagined.
I must admit that even though I found the story to be well-written and its incorporation of Islamic mythology and folklore to be fascinating, the overall reading experience wasn't as fun as I expected. The story actually seems to run longer than its 32 pages would lead one to expect, yet I found it difficult to connect with the protagonist for intangible reasons I can't describe.
The story does open promisingly with the spellbinding tales of Gramps' childhood but ends on a predictable note. However, there's plenty to like. Specifically, I enjoyed reading about Muslim characters in magical and mystical tales. This is where I want Fantasy to be heading -- towards a more inclusive and diverse future. Overall, I left the story with the satisfied feeling of time well-spent. I must recommend this enchanting little novella because it only costs $0.99, can be read in one sitting, and explores interesting mythology that's unfamiliar to western audiences.
February 28, 2016
This is a short story which I decided to read on a whim. I heard about this from Rachel's channel when she mentioned some of the short fiction works she'd recently read and enjoyed, and this one piqued my interest enough to get me to go and read it.
It's the story of a young boy growing up and listening to his grandfather's stories about a princess he claims to have known. The story seems like it has grains of truth to it, but the boy isn't sure if he's just fantasising or if he's really hearing about something that happened to his grandfather.
This story has strong Pakistani roots and influences and the main character, although now living in the US, is Pakistani. He's a character who we don't learn too much about over the course of the story, but his grandfather was immediately endearing and sweet. I definitely liked trying to guess what might happen, and I have to admit I was very much wrong many times (which I like as I like being surprised).
This felt like a fairly long story, fleshed out well enough that it was immersive and I wanted to know what would happen. Overall a 4*s from me and one I'd certainly recommend.
It's the story of a young boy growing up and listening to his grandfather's stories about a princess he claims to have known. The story seems like it has grains of truth to it, but the boy isn't sure if he's just fantasising or if he's really hearing about something that happened to his grandfather.
This story has strong Pakistani roots and influences and the main character, although now living in the US, is Pakistani. He's a character who we don't learn too much about over the course of the story, but his grandfather was immediately endearing and sweet. I definitely liked trying to guess what might happen, and I have to admit I was very much wrong many times (which I like as I like being surprised).
This felt like a fairly long story, fleshed out well enough that it was immersive and I wanted to know what would happen. Overall a 4*s from me and one I'd certainly recommend.
March 22, 2016
I read this utterly enchanting novella in one sitting. A Pakistani-American man named Salman becomes enthralled by the tales his grandfather tells of the pauper princess and the eucalyptus jinn and seeks to uncover the mysteries, the reality behind the fantasy, the mysteries behind reality. There's so much at play here: the nature of jinn, interacting with one's own family history in an attempt to understand oneself, the generational culture clash, how one relates to one's culture as the child of immigrants. Usman T. Malik effectively transports us to Lahore past and present—as well as boring old America—and even...beyond. The last few pages really elevate the novella, bringing everything together beautifully.
April 24, 2015
I sat down to read this mythically-threaded and wonderfully-written story of a timeless connection between a grandfather and his grandson. I was actually resentful when I had to get up to use the facilities and get a cold drink of water. All I wanted to do was to re-immerse myself back into such an intriguing story with the colorful, swirling images that formed in my brain from the deliciously descriptive words. It is a tale of East meets West then back again. It is timeless because it is the future meets the past then back only to drift ethereally back into the deep, deep cavernous past that cannot be grasped or remotely comprehended by mortal man, and yet one man must try to absorb and understand just an infinitesimal sliver of the evolution from the point of creation to modern times.
I not only recommend this book highly but caution the reader to be prepared to read until the last insightful sentence begs the eyes to linger for just a minute more. It is a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned, as the wonderment and lessons charm the disheartened and entrance even a cool heart. The story gives the reader a lot to think about and digest. I will be anxious to read it again.
I not only recommend this book highly but caution the reader to be prepared to read until the last insightful sentence begs the eyes to linger for just a minute more. It is a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned, as the wonderment and lessons charm the disheartened and entrance even a cool heart. The story gives the reader a lot to think about and digest. I will be anxious to read it again.
April 25, 2016
Copied from my Blog.
First thing I feared was a retake of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper transferred Malik's typical Pakistan setting. Boy, was I relieved that it took a completely different route: It is a complete action-free metaphysical discussion of prescience, immortality, history and mythology, truth and lies, family relationships between grandfather and grandson, two love stories, and between East and West with special considerations of Islamic theology. Now, if you think of Jinns as those Disney lamp-bound ghosts, then you'll find a very interesting different version in this great novella. I loved the characters, the images, the mysticism.
The eponymous pauper prince is Salman Ali Zaidi, a son of Pakistani immagrants who works as a college professor. He hears his Grandfather's tale of poor Mughal princess Zeenat Begum operating a tea stall in Lahore, and a Eucalyptus tree inhabitated by a Jinn near her shop. Grandfather dies in 2013, and Salman has to discover his mysterious roots in Lahore.
First thing I feared was a retake of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper transferred Malik's typical Pakistan setting. Boy, was I relieved that it took a completely different route: It is a complete action-free metaphysical discussion of prescience, immortality, history and mythology, truth and lies, family relationships between grandfather and grandson, two love stories, and between East and West with special considerations of Islamic theology. Now, if you think of Jinns as those Disney lamp-bound ghosts, then you'll find a very interesting different version in this great novella. I loved the characters, the images, the mysticism.
The eponymous pauper prince is Salman Ali Zaidi, a son of Pakistani immagrants who works as a college professor. He hears his Grandfather's tale of poor Mughal princess Zeenat Begum operating a tea stall in Lahore, and a Eucalyptus tree inhabitated by a Jinn near her shop. Grandfather dies in 2013, and Salman has to discover his mysterious roots in Lahore.
January 17, 2020
This was hurtling towards 5 stars when all of a sudden it went rogue and disintegrated before my eyes. Ah well.
April 10, 2017
A grandfather tells his grandson a story, about a princess who guarded a tree that held a jinn, and how the princess bequeathed the tree's secret to the grandfather. Decades later, when the grandson is now an adult, the grandfather dies leaving him his journals. The grandson becomes obsessed with knowing the truth, and travels to Lahore to trace his grandfather's legacy, and the secret he kept.
A lovely novella overall. I was annoyed by how the women were treated--their main purpose in the narrative was to have babies and to provide the impetus of male return (for their love, of course). But there's not enough fiction using this mythology, and it was a great story overall.
You can read it free here: http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
A lovely novella overall. I was annoyed by how the women were treated--their main purpose in the narrative was to have babies and to provide the impetus of male return (for their love, of course). But there's not enough fiction using this mythology, and it was a great story overall.
You can read it free here: http://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pau...
May 19, 2024
This had some phenomenal elements (the whole concept!) and some elements that really didn’t work imo (the girlfriend, the ending!).
I loved this sort of family history/quest - would have totally read a much longer version of it tbh! However, I found the unhappy girlfriend subplot generic and I really didn’t like the resolution of the plot. I see how it works in a sense, but thematically I just wasn’t at all convinced that it fit with the mystery and beauty of the story that came before.
I loved this sort of family history/quest - would have totally read a much longer version of it tbh! However, I found the unhappy girlfriend subplot generic and I really didn’t like the resolution of the plot. I see how it works in a sense, but thematically I just wasn’t at all convinced that it fit with the mystery and beauty of the story that came before.
Read
December 31, 2018Strange little story about a man discovering his grandpa's past. Pakistani-inspired. Most of it is the protagonist narrating rather than experiencing, though the slow reveal is interesting.
Not sure what to think of it.
Not sure what to think of it.
February 28, 2023
What is it about us readers and our ability to relate to anything that we read?
We find familiarity in books that should in no way relate to us and we tend to hold this familiarity with so much strength that it surprises me.
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn is a pseudo-mythological novella that tells the story of a young man and his quest to discover more about the stories of a djinn his grandfather told him about and the implications that it can have on him and his relationships.
For starters, the book is as mystical as these folklore-inspired tales come but what surprised me was the force of unwavering fixture this story held me with.
A rapture of emotions that I couldn't explain.
Why had this tale about a pauper princess, a djinn, an old man and his curious grandson taken me with such force?
It wasn't until a week had passed that I had a moment of realization. A relationship that echoed within the confines of this digital story made of 1s and 0s.
A faint nostalgic twine wrapped around my mind with a vague remembrance of my relationship with my late grandparents.
It wasn't the mystical and magical of the story that had entrapped me, but the echoes of my grandparents' stories about their myths and encounters with the supernatural.
The power that a book holds over you is directly proportional to the effect that it can have on your emotions.
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn made me feel an intense longing for my grandparents and took me through a swirl of fond memories, pain and ultimately gratitude.
If you're a fan of well-written stories that evoke feelings of nostalgia and longing, then I highly recommend giving it a read.
You can read the ebook for free at TOR's website.
We find familiarity in books that should in no way relate to us and we tend to hold this familiarity with so much strength that it surprises me.
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn is a pseudo-mythological novella that tells the story of a young man and his quest to discover more about the stories of a djinn his grandfather told him about and the implications that it can have on him and his relationships.
For starters, the book is as mystical as these folklore-inspired tales come but what surprised me was the force of unwavering fixture this story held me with.
A rapture of emotions that I couldn't explain.
Why had this tale about a pauper princess, a djinn, an old man and his curious grandson taken me with such force?
It wasn't until a week had passed that I had a moment of realization. A relationship that echoed within the confines of this digital story made of 1s and 0s.
A faint nostalgic twine wrapped around my mind with a vague remembrance of my relationship with my late grandparents.
It wasn't the mystical and magical of the story that had entrapped me, but the echoes of my grandparents' stories about their myths and encounters with the supernatural.
The power that a book holds over you is directly proportional to the effect that it can have on your emotions.
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn made me feel an intense longing for my grandparents and took me through a swirl of fond memories, pain and ultimately gratitude.
If you're a fan of well-written stories that evoke feelings of nostalgia and longing, then I highly recommend giving it a read.
You can read the ebook for free at TOR's website.
October 10, 2016
Would you like to visit Old Pakistan, learn about the mythic evolution of an unseen species or simply enjoy a good ol' folktale?
The British Fantasy Society recently awarded this story the best novella of 2016, and I'm so happy they did, because if they hadn't, I wouldn't have known of its existence!
This started off almost like a memoir. I felt like I was reading about the author's life, as he wrote in first person and described the events in his life in a very compelling manner. As someone who speaks Urdu at home and had the basic culture-oriented Islamic upbringing (which by the way is not in the least a requirement to fully understand this story), I quickly absorbed the writer's ethnic references and found myself engrossed.
I crossed geographical territories in my mind and landed in Old Lahore. I met the pauper princess, Zeenat Begum and was invited to have a cup of her famous cardamom tea. I could see myself touching the ageing walls of the proclaimed rug shop, decorated with impeccable calligrams and other-worldly imaginings.
What Malik did with Islamic mythology in this story, took my breath away. If there were any misgivings on my part initially, there were completely shattered by the end of the day when I finally finished reading this novella.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look up the author's other published works.
The British Fantasy Society recently awarded this story the best novella of 2016, and I'm so happy they did, because if they hadn't, I wouldn't have known of its existence!
This started off almost like a memoir. I felt like I was reading about the author's life, as he wrote in first person and described the events in his life in a very compelling manner. As someone who speaks Urdu at home and had the basic culture-oriented Islamic upbringing (which by the way is not in the least a requirement to fully understand this story), I quickly absorbed the writer's ethnic references and found myself engrossed.
I crossed geographical territories in my mind and landed in Old Lahore. I met the pauper princess, Zeenat Begum and was invited to have a cup of her famous cardamom tea. I could see myself touching the ageing walls of the proclaimed rug shop, decorated with impeccable calligrams and other-worldly imaginings.
What Malik did with Islamic mythology in this story, took my breath away. If there were any misgivings on my part initially, there were completely shattered by the end of the day when I finally finished reading this novella.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look up the author's other published works.
January 14, 2021
I am not Pakistani, but this story still transported me to a childhood spent sitting at my Pakistani grandfather's feet as he told me a story about the scion of the Mughals, who ran a tea stall in the shade of a eucalyptus tree in pre-Partition Lahore.
It was magical, combining both Scheherazade and Lovecraft, the immigrant experience of a gulf opening up between generations and rediscovering one's roots. I definitely recommend you read it; it's freely available at Tor.com:
https://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pa...
It was magical, combining both Scheherazade and Lovecraft, the immigrant experience of a gulf opening up between generations and rediscovering one's roots. I definitely recommend you read it; it's freely available at Tor.com:
https://www.tor.com/2015/04/22/the-pa...
May 15, 2022
What a fabulous blend of misplaced identities, fantastical myths and cultural tensions. On top of it, the craft and lyrical prose just makes it an unforgettable masterpiece of folk fantasy. Read it in one sitting, and it will not fail to drag you into exquisite imagery and moving dialogues. Usman Malik really knows the art of story telling, and this one shows that it will not be long before he'll master it.
May 13, 2024
Gorgeously lush writing, of myth and history, of legends and family legacies. I loved this story, even if the ending left me marginally unsatisfied because it ended up more metaphysical cosmological than fantasy (although to be fair, this was hinted at fairly early on).
I love ethnic/ Muslim fantasy stories, and this had all the right ingredients! Except for the brown boy/ white girl pairing that I found annoying bc it seems to play into a particular narrative that grates on my nerves.
I love ethnic/ Muslim fantasy stories, and this had all the right ingredients! Except for the brown boy/ white girl pairing that I found annoying bc it seems to play into a particular narrative that grates on my nerves.
April 21, 2016
There are novellas that are complete little worlds. And then there's this one, dazzlingly complex and leaving me hoping it was a novel, because it's not enough.
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