Tommy Orange’s Latest Novel

In his new story,Jamil Jan Kochai describes a group of Afghan immigrants and refugees, living in Sacramento, who meet to talk, gossip, argue, eat, and pray together, although their histories, political views, and affiliations in Afghanistan are all quite different. Kochai draws on his memories of similar khatams, or gatherings, he attended as a child. “At a gathering like this you may find yourself witnessing intense moments of vulnerability. One man might describe how he was tortured as a prisoner of war, or another might recall the day his brother was hauled away from their home, never to be seen again. But, even amid these memories, these recollections, so much is left unsaid that you can leave the encounter feeling that you know even less about the person, or the community, than you did before,” he said. When a surprise guest turns up at the khatam in the story, he is welcomed in and accepted, and only gradually, over time, do the other guests—and we, the readers—unravel the darker mysteries of his past.

—Deborah Treisman, fiction editor