Ali Sethi Pens Essay on the Flooding in Pakistan for the New York Times

In a moving essay in the New York Times Opinion section, Ali Sethi, author of The Wishmaker, describes the flooding in Pakistan and the political troubles there. More...

Riverhead author Ali Sethi writes New York Times piece on sectarian conflict in Pakistan

In his op-ed for The New York Times, novelist Ali Sethi remembers his childhood education and reflects on the factors that contributed to the May attacks on Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, Pakistan. Sethi’s acclaimed debut The Wish Maker deals with growing up in a middle-class family during a politically fraught period in Pakistan’s history. More...

The Wall Street Journal on Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker

“The book's sharpest insights are reserved for matters of the heart. Mr. Sethi is especially alive to the emotional contours of young love, its modes of courtship, its methods of subterfuge….A novel worth reading, a worm's eye view of the kinds of lives that rarely make their way to the pages of a newspaper or magazine.” More...

Time on Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker

“Written in astoundingly assured prose that belies the author's youth (he is 25), particularly in his throbbing takes of contemporary Lahore, where he grew up…Sethi's sharp eye, worthy of being an entomologist's, makes the book a steadily absorbing read, all 400-plus pages of it…[The Wish Maker] leaves you wishing for much more from Sethi, whose buzzing talent is unmistakable.” More...

The New York Times Book Review on Ali Sethi’s debut novel The Wish Maker

“First-rate…Sethi's prose evokes the comic mislocutions of Jonathan Safran Foer and the vertiginous mania of Zadie Smith…Sethi exposes the essential friction of life in modern Pakistan." More...

San Jose Mercury News on Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker

“Sethi is a marvelously engaging writer with a deceptively light touch. He astutely captures the contradictions that bedevil a society like Pakistan's.” More...

Seattlest.com on Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker

“We absolutely loved Ali Sethi's debut novel The Wish Maker. The fact that he is only 24 years old and could produce such a well-written, excellent debut novel is just outstanding…[The Wish Maker] reminds us of how we felt while reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon, a couple years back; that same lyricalness to it, as if it were meant for a song rather than a novel. Sethi's descriptions are everything but cliché, and rather fresh and inventive.” More...

Ali Sethi on PBS’s Tavis Smiley

 Ali Sethi talks with Tavis Smiley about his novel The Wish Maker and about what it’s like as a young person in Pakistan today.

Two new Riverhead novels make Vogue’s Top 10 Summer Books List

Ali Sethi’s debut novel about Pakistan, The Wish Maker, and Colin McAdam’s new spellbinding novel, Fall, landed on Vogue’s summer hit list.

Portland’s Willamette Week on Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker

“[C]onfident first-person narration, combined with some truly startling content, is what makes The Wish Maker so unforgettable. Quite unexpectedly, it is the best novel to be published yet this year." More...