Naulakhi Kothi

Ali Akbar Natiq is among the foremost voices writing in Urdu today. He is the author of fifteen books
across the genres of fiction, poetry, biography and literary criticism. His work enjoys the rare honour of being both critically acclaimed and bestselling. It has been translated into English, Hindi and German, and featured in New York Times and Granta. His collection of short stories, Qaim Din (Oxford University Press, 2012), was awarded the UBL-Jang Literary Excellence Award in 2013. In addition to being an author, he is an accomplished architect.


Naima Rashid is an author, poet and translator whose work was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition and Best Small Fictions. She has translated three works from Urdu and French into English, and her own fiction and poetry are forthcoming 2024 onwards. Her writings have been widely published in reputed journals like Asymptote, The Scores, Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham and The Aleph Review. In addition, she is a collaborator with the UK-based translation collective, Shadow Heroes.

William returns to Hindustan after eight long years in England as the newly appointed assistant commissioner of Jalalabad in pre-Partition Punjab. He dreams of returning to his 'home' in the idyllic Naulakhi Kothi, the titular bungalow built by his grandfather, but an irreversible turn of events awaits him, which changes not only his destiny, but that of the land forever.
Ali Akbar Natiq's epic saga, Naulakhi Kothi, is an insightful portrayal of the zeitgeist of the times. The sweeping narrative begins in the years leading up to Partition and goes on till the eighties.
Translated by Naima Rashid, it is one of the most important novels of the twenty-first century.

Ali Akbar Natiq is the reigning prince of modern Urdu literature. His first novel Naulakhi Kothi is an intimate epic, a romp through Punjab's past and present, and a poetic interrogation of our colonial masters. I am fortunate that Natiq is from a village only a couple of miles from mine in Okara. These pages have the fragrance of our tilled earth, shades of the colour of our common blood. I don't know any writer, in any language, who can write so beautifully and then go and build stunning red brick buildings with his own hands.Naima Rashid pulls off another remarkable metamorphosis of translation. Fragrances of hookah smoke to chameli flowers permeate a language that should have felt foreign to this whole story, and yet Rashid's English is imbued with the lyrical nuances of Urdu and articulates the raw, loud, simplicity of Punjabi culture in a fluid and natural texture. This novel encompasses the soul of three different languages in its very woof and weft. This is a rare and remarkable novel. Like the sea, its deep calm encircles the reader, even as the rich secret life and the ebb and flow of the story's currents pull at one inexorably

Ali Akbar Natiq is among Urdu's foremost writers, A poet, fiction writer and novelist, he has dazzled readers and critics with his mesmerizing portraits of rural Panjab. Natiq's work has been translated and published in reputed literary journals across the globe.
Naulakhi Kothi weaves a complex plot of rivalries, intrigues and compassion. It brings alive an array of characters whose lives through generations are caught up in the web of existence. The British Raj is presented through William, a civilian officer who has put down deep roots in the land of Panjab. Natiq's novel has a wide canvas. Under the historical backdrop of a fascinating era an equally compelling story intertwined with love for the land, landlords and their families begins to unfold. Naulakhi Kothi's narrative has momentum, memorable characters and all the elements that make it an unforgettable read.
Naima Rashid's translation stays close to the Urdu text, preserving the flavor of Urdu speckled with regional dialect. Her nuanced choices of words keep the flow of the English in sync with the Urdu.