Healing generational trauma through storytelling and solving the mystery of three murders.

THE STORYTELLER
by Faiqa Mansab
Neem Tree Press, June 2024
(via Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy)

Layla, a scholar of stories, lives a quiet, predictable life until one day she finds a dead woman in her library.

Mira is a renowned storyteller. When a corpse turns up in a red cloak with a note to her from the murderer, she must join forces with Layla and enter the realm of Story for answers in a bid to save herself and her daughter.

This novel is immersed in Sufi literature, Sufi storytelling techniques and fairy tales, but at its heart it is a murder mystery. The story is set in the U.S. and is also about the wounded relationship of a mother and daughter, how they heal their relationship while they solve the murders with the help of fairy tales retold, and old secret Sufi stories. It is Elif Shafak’s Forty Rules of Love meets Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.

THE STORYTELLER explores the healing of wounded motherdaughter relationships through the magic of Sufi storytelling.

Faiqa Mansab is a Pakistani writer. She holds an Mphil in English Literature, an MFA in creative writing with a high distinction from Kingston University London and an MA in Gender and Cultural Studies from Birkbeck University London. She has written and continues to write for numerous publications both local and international. Her debut novel This House of Clay and Water (2017) was longlisted for Getz Pharma Fiction Prize and the German Consulate Peace Prize at the Karachi Literature Festival 2018. Faiqa lives in Lahore with her family. Faiqa is agented by Annette Crossland at A for Authors LitAg.