The Dreamwork of Lisa D
By Adrian A. Husain
Alhamra
ISBN: 9789493445017
278pp.

At the launching ceremony of Adrian Husain’s debut novel The Dreamwork of Lisa D, one of the guests asked what “kind of novel” it was.

Now, a novel may certainly fit this or the other kind of novelistic ‘type’ or genre. It may be about events, as ‘action’ novels are. It may solve mysteries or project futures. It may revolve around philosophical concepts. Or socio-political ideas. It may outline fantasies. Or satires. It may even not be about people at all, such as some of the works of James Joyce or Samuel Beckett.

For this reviewer, while it may be significant to see where a book or its author is coming from, the pigeon-holing of a work of fiction is not useful. Just like human personalities, fine works of fiction are individual — each is one of a kind. They are both complex and subtle and the best are sensitive and finely nuanced.

And it is these adjectives — ‘complex’, ‘subtle’, ‘sensitive’ and ‘finely nuanced’ — that best describe Husain’s novel.

This high-quality work ranks far above the kind of reiterations of banal tropes that too often characterise contemporary Pakistani fiction. It is a political novel, yes, but political in a broader sense, one that does not engage in journalistic comment. Its explorations are deeper and more complex. Its investigations of identity, rooted in history, are many-sided and do not impinge on the development of human characters with variegated lives and relationships.

Set against the violence and uncertainty of 1990s Karachi, a remarkable debut novel by the celebrated poet Adrian Husain explores identity, memory and belonging

The Dreamwork of Lisa D is a distinctive reading experience. It is not the kind of work that can be easily fit into a genre or category. The characters here are multi-layered, driven by complex impulses and sentiments. The events that form the story of the book reflect the distinctive characteristics that life in this lawless city of Karachi is all about.

The action of the book takes place in Karachi of the 1990s, when the intrinsically volatile nature of this city boiled over into ethnic violence. The narrative traces historical connections to the Indian cities from which many of the inhabitants of this Karachi or their family elders had migrated. At its base, it seeks secure rootedness, (and this is important) as if in the ancient, repeatedly renewed soil of the Indus on which these characters are settled.

Or are they settled? Rooted? In a real sense, Husain’s elite Karachi seems an almost evanescent demi monde, missing firm rootedness. And so does its menacing alter ego, the dark Karachi underworld. This demi monde is oddly disconnected from the ancient soil of this land of Mohenjo Daro and Gandhara — a ‘dreamwork’, as it were.

Multi-layered and finely nuanced, this novel has, at its underlay, the basin of the mighty River Indus, with its immensely ancient history and the multiple archaeological layers of civilisations, cultures and faiths that have flourished by its banks. It is this multi-layered quality… as of layers of river silt, or of civilisations… that finds its way into the layered nature of the characters in this book.

The central character is Mona Dewan, also called Lisa, as in ‘Mona Lisa.’ The narrative begins with her being driven in an SUV through the dangerous chaos of Karachi traffic. She reminisces about her childhood and genteel old family. Lisa’s driver, Asal Khan, shares insights about his background and the region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (once Gandhara) from where he comes.

This high-quality work ranks far above the kind of reiterations of banal tropes that too often characterise contemporary Pakistani fiction. It is a political novel, yes, but political in a broader sense, one that does not engage in journalistic comment. Its explorations are deeper and more complex.

The story revolves around Lisa’s failing marriage to the nouveau riche Hassan Dewan, whom she once found so attractive. Hassan’s kidnapping by one of the ethnic criminal gangs operating in Karachi forms a core event in the action of the book. The novel suggests (it never directly states) that Hassan is an incomplete person. At the end of the book, he is left literally incomplete.

This sense of a kind of incompleteness — a missing arc of the personality — affects many of the characters in the book. But it notably spares Sikander Khan, the archaeologist from Peshawar, towards whose completeness and self-assurance Lisa is drawn, despite her intense anxiety over her kidnapped husband.

Metaphorically, Lisa feels a pull towards the historical soil, embodied in the Gandhara theme that runs through the book — seeking rootedness, perhaps? Her friend Ronnie Dinshaw has previously acted as a kind of guide for her. But Ronnie is cold and conceals his secret feelings towards Lisa rather than risk their friendship.

Lisa’s dreams, filled with anxiety and familial conflicts, reflect her inner turmoil and the complexities of her relationships. The narrative explores her struggle to maintain composure amidst the chaos surrounding her husband’s plight. But is it composure? Or, in some sense, a kind of relief?

The novel features a number of such ambiguities. Even actual events are sometimes ambiguous. Did her husband’s bodyguard Yasrab threaten Lisa by displaying the dagger in his waistband? Or did he simply request his wages when going on home leave? Or perhaps we are observing two separate timelines, and both are correct.

So, even actual occurrences may be provisional, contingent on the observer and the moment of observation. The influence of E.M. Forster, and especially his celebrated novel A Passage to India, seems to be at work here. Husain’s work has something of that work’s did-it-happen-or-did-it-not feeling. Forster’s sense that ‘time’ (in India, or in the caves) is somehow different to ‘time’ in the outer world, may also be relevant.

Plot complexities notwithstanding, the novel is a pleasurable delight to read. The author’s ability to tell this story is of surpassing excellence. Husain writes with the elegance and precision of a Mozart quintet. There is a seldom-achieved classic grace in this prose and an understated richness that lift The Dreamwork of Lisa D far above what too often passes for novelistic writing. This is a work, and an author, of rare quality.

Adrian Husain is, of course, also an award-winning poet (the Guinness Poetry Prize). This gives his prose a refinement and a facility with the rhythms of words that greatly enhance the enjoyment of his work. This first novel by him is unquestionably a work of outstanding quality and significance.

The reviewer is an author and a poet

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 9th, 2026