The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories

A luminous meditation on sons and fathers, ghosts of war, and living history that moves between modern-day Afghanistan and the Afghani disapora.

Pen/Hemingway finalist Jamil Jan Kochai ​breathes life into his contemporary Afghani characters, exploring heritage and memory from the homeland to the diaspora in the United States, in the spiritual and physical lands ​these unforgettable characters inhabit.



In playing "Metal Gear Solid V," a young man's video game experience turns into a surreal exploration on his own father's memories of war and occupation. Another young man in "Hungry Ricky Daddy" starves himself in protest of Israeli violence against Palestine. Set in Kabul, "Return to Sender" follows a doctor couple who must deal with harsh realities of their decision to stay as the violence grows and their son disappears. And in the title story, "The Haunting of Hajji Sahib," we learn the story of a man codenamed Hajji, from the perspective of a government surveillance worker, who becomes entrenched in the immigrant family's life.



The Haunting of Hajji Sahib and Other Stories is a moving, exploration and narrative of heritage, the ghosts of war, and home-​and one that speaks to the immediate political landscape we reckon with today.