“[A] magnificent collection … Indian poet, essayist, and author Tabish Khair nimbly interrogates relationships both enabled and sundered by religious and socioeconomic divides in Namaste Trump & Other Stories … Khair proves to be an elegant, diligent conduit for all of his characters, as he records incidents of desperate sacrifice, casual disregard, blind denial, and generational trauma to create an unforgettable mosaic of human frailty and unforgivable inhumanity.”

– —Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Indian poet, essayist, and author Tabish Khair (The Thing About Thugs) nimbly interrogates relationships both enabled and sundered by religious and socioeconomic divides in Namaste Trump & Other Stories. This magnificent collection opens with ‘Night of Happiness,’ a sly yet ultimately devastating novella featuring a Hindu businessman and his longstanding Muslim employee responsible for much of the company's success. Ahmed is a tireless worker whose only request has been to celebrate Shab-e-Barat, the Muslim festival ‘night of happiness,’ at home with his wife. A visit to Ahmed's flat one rainy afternoon morphs into a poignantly haunting mystery. Hindu-Muslim tensions permeate three interconnected stories—‘The Corridor,’ ‘The Ubiquity of Riots,’ and ‘Elopement’—told from the perspective of Sameer, an only child so protected that he sleeps in his parents' room until he's 12. Theirs is a privileged, albeit minority, Muslim family in a small town that has been their home for generations; but longevity doesn't mean acceptance. That story trio brilliantly sets up ‘Olden Friends Are Golden,’ in which 50-something Sameer remains connected via WhatsApp group chat to childhood friends who are quick to dismiss some of their own because they are not a ‘good’ Muslim, ‘like Sameer.’ In the titular ‘Namaste Trump,’ an ad executive readily dismisses his ‘goofy’ devoted servant as India goes into pandemic lockdown, but his callous disregard turns into karmic torment. ‘I had to tell my story,’ one protagonist declares. Khair proves to be an elegant, diligent conduit for all of his characters, as he records incidents of desperate sacrifice, casual disregard, blind denial, and generational trauma to create an unforgettable mosaic of human frailty and unforgivable inhumanity.”

– —Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Indian writer Khair colors in scenes of quotidian life with depictions of violence, political upheaval, and strange behavior in this accomplished collection … Khair demonstrates a sure hand in stories that keep readers on their toes with a mix of existential searching and biting irony.”

– —Publishers Weekly

“Indian writer Khair colors in scenes of quotidian life with depictions of violence, political upheaval, and strange behavior in this accomplished collection (after the crime novel The Body by the Shore). ‘Night of Happiness,’ a novella set in the present day, explores an employer’s unease with his loyal right-hand man. Anil Mehrota, a Hindu, runs a thriving import/export business with the help of Ahmed, the only Muslim applicant for the job (‘I did not want to feel prejudiced by not giving him a chance,’ Mehrota narrates). In ‘The Corridor,’ one of three stories that depict the chaos and instability of the early 1970s Indo-Pakistan conflicts, a young boy fears his routine visits with a tutor, whose building is infested with rats and has dank hallways piled with discarded furniture. The incandescent ‘Shadow of a Story’ features a literature professor’s meditation on the value of literature as the Covid-19 pandemic ravages India. He remembers how two decades earlier, while visiting his rural hometown after finishing his PhD, he stumbled upon the body of a six-year-old child bride who had been sacrificially killed. Khair demonstrates a sure hand in stories that keep readers on their toes with a mix of existential searching and biting irony.”

– —Publishers Weekly

“Skillful and intriguing … A book that reminded me much more of Paul Auster than of any of Khair’s Indian contemporaries … [Namaste Trump], while undeniably a ‘literary thriller’ with a gripping and well-constructed plot, is also a penetrating inquiry into, among other things, the nature of loss and trauma—in this case following the Gujarat pogrom of 2002—and of the varieties of Muslim faith in India.”

– The Hindu

“A serving of distilled wisdom from Tabish Khair … [Namaste Trump] is gripping and almost impossible to put down … Khair, like in all his books, ensures that long after the book ends, its poetry—because it certainly is that—continues to gently waft through your mind.”

– The Week

“In Albert Camus’ immortal words, ‘the purpose of the writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.’ Tabish Khair shoulders this responsibility with impressive fortitude. Nuanced and insightful, his fiction shines a light on the inner workings of a world mired in Islamophobia and intolerance. It raises difficult, and necessary, questions about the powerful influence religion exerts on the Indian social fabric.”

– Open Magazine