Home - Publication Launching Announcement

Publication Launching Announcement

Jasoosi Duniya in English

Publication Launching Announcement

Blaft Publications, India

An entire generation of post-Independence Pakistanis and North Indians grew up reading him, both in Urdu and in Hindi. The journalist Khaled Ahmed called him “the only real bestseller in Urdu”. Bollywood screenwriter Javed Akhtar credited his characters as the inspiration for the famous film villains Gabbar and Mogambo. And Dr. A.Q. Khan, the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, called him “the all-time greatest Urdu-language detective story writer.” On Friday, April 22nd, 2011, Blaft Publications will release eBook English translations of four novels by the late, great Urdu author Ibne Safi.

Poisoned Arrow

In an unnamed city somewhere in Hindustan, a man is killed by a poisoned arrow outside a popular nightclub. The subsequent investigation, led by the intrepid Colonel Faridi and his assistant, Captain Hameed, opens up a shadowy underworld network of pimps, drug dealers, and foreign spies. But who is behind it all? The diminutive Goan named Finch? The beautiful yet mysterious Tara Nayadu? Or the enigmatic American arch-criminal, Doctor Dread?

Jasusi Dunya #60

Smokewater

Prominent industrialist Sir Fayyaz Ahmad disappears en route to his vacation home, and returns several days later in a strange delusional state. His granddaughter, the young and beautiful Shakila, approaches Colonel Faridi and Captain Hameed for help. The investigation leads the two detectives through the corrupt, twisted world of the super-rich—their stately mansions, white yachts, and platinum mines—and smack into the middle of a deadly game being played by the notorious American criminal Doctor Dread.

Jasusi Dunya #61

The Laughing Corpse

The beautiful Saeeda Rahman, a typist at the firm of James & Bartley, learns that her long-lost uncle has died in Jamaica and named her as the sole inheritor of his huge estate. Suddenly all the city’s richest young men are competing for her attention. But when she’s kidnapped during a scuffle at a popular restaurant, it’s up to Colonel Faridi and Captain Hameed to find out who’s responsible…

Jasusi Dunya #62

Doctor Dread

The wealthy widow Begum Irshad is being blackmailed by a mysterious foreigner. Crime reporter and freelance investigator Anwar is hired to go undercover and find out who he is. Meanwhile, Captain Hameed and Colonel Faridi are trying to figure out why a mentally deranged man who thinks he’s an angel is being kept imprisoned in a five-story building. As bullets fly and the bodycount rises, it begins to look as though both cases may be related to the ongoing feud between the tiny, monkey-faced killer named Finch and the American arch-criminal Doctor Dread…

Jasusi Dunya #63

About the Author

One of the quirkiest and most prolific Urdu writers of the 20th century, Ibne Safi was born Asrar Ahmed in Allahabad District, Uttar Pradesh, India, in 1928. He migrated to Karachi, Pakistan shortly after the publication of the first Jasusi Dunya novel, and lived there until his death in 1980.

A wealth of further information on Safi’s life and writings can be found at the excellent fan website www.ibnesafi.info, run by Mohammed Hanif.

The Blaft books have been translated by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, a man who has been called “the Urdu language’s foremost writer and critic”.

The eBooks will go on sale April 22nd in the US, UK, Australia/New Zealand and Europe at the Amazon Kindle Store, as well as in ePub format for the Nook, iPad and other devices. In the US, they are priced at $4.99 each except for the longer Doctor Dread, priced at $5.99.

Print editions of the books will be available in the Indian subcontinent, where Blaft will co-publish them with Tranquebar Press. If you’re in Delhi on the 22nd, please join us for the launch event at the Habitat Centre (see the invitation).

A foreign-market print edition will be released later this year.

Blaft Publications is a small publishing house based in Chennai, India. The company was launched in 2008 and quickly became well-known for The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, a collection of Tamil crime, romance, science fiction, and horror stories translated to English by Pritham K. Chakravarthy. Other successful releases have included translations of Tamil experimental fiction, folktales, graphic novels, visual books, and English-language flash fiction. Visit www.blaft.com to browse their titles.

for further information or advance review materials contact:

Blaft Publications Pvt. Ltd.
4/192 Ellaiamman Koil St.
Neelankarai
Chennai 600041
India

Home - Publication Launching Announcement

Publication Launching Announcement

Jasoosi Duniya in English