Zindeeq (Novel)

Zindeeq or Heretic, is the first Urdu novel to receive the support of an International Research Grant funded by the 'Crossing Borders' program of the 'Robert Bosch Foundation' and the 'Literarisches Colloquium, Berlin' towards its creative process. The Times of India states that 'Rahman Abbas bagged this grant to tour Europe, especially concentration camps in Germany, to study the impact of Nazism on German society.' Rahman Abbas visited Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, and France in 2019-2020 to research and understand how the racist and nationalist ideology of Nazism resulted in a genocide as yet unparalleled in human history. A dystopian and apocalyptic novel, Zindeeq is a comparative study of the effects of Nazism in Europe and the damages that religious extremism may cause in Pakistan and India. The novel devises a new narrative style, Mythological Realism, to tell the stories of men and women living in an extremely volatile time and how this traumatic period affects their lives, dreams, sexuality and pleasures. Their impulses, follies, self-dialogues, tendencies, delusions, and insecurities are the maps through which the novel unfolds, from 2045 to 2075, in the aftermath of major societal upheaval.