“Sarmad has a prophet’s arrogance, a pervert’s gaze, and a poet’s voice. The Blessed Curse says it all.” –Muhammad Hanif

“A much anticipated work by one of Pakistan’s most accomplished writers.” –Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West

“Experience Sarmad Sehbai’s engrossing novel The Blessed Curse, where toxic masculinity and the desire for power intertwine in a tale of eroticism, alliances, and downfall. This story connects a Pakistani story with a global outlook by weaving it into a dystopian backdrop with plenty of dark Punjabi humour. A genre-bending, captivating read.” –Claire Chambers, Professor of Global Literature, University of York

“Sarmad Sehbai is a literary maverick and a true outlaw . . . A master provocateur, his wildly impish sensibility and unwavering irreverence make him a modern inheritor of the great twentieth-century iconoclasts like Manto and Jean Genet.” –Bilal Tanweer, author of The Scatter Here Is Too Great

“The Blessed Curse is a the first English-language novel by one of the living greats of Urdu poetry, Sarmad Sehbai, an uncompromising iconoclast, celebrant of corporeality, and champion of the native ethos and rhythms of the Punjab against the grid of Arabic, Persian, or English conventions, leaving us to wonder: what form will Sarmad’s English-language novel take, and where will it take us? In his characteristically resonant voice, Sarmad draws on the cultural richness of Punjab–its traditions of storytelling, dark and bawdy humor, and masterful uses of irony–as well as his cosmopolitan sensibilities to address our contemporary global situation in an electrifying and well-crafted tale that will leave you laughing, crying, or both–and craving for more.” –A Sean Pue, Professor of Hindi Language and South Asian Literature and Culture, Michigan State University