Adnan Khan is a writer, screenwriter and journalist based in Toronto. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph.
Fiction
The Hypebeast
Toronto: Rare Machines/Dundurn Press, 2025.
forthcoming April 2025
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Hamid Shaikh is a small-time crook in the big city, hoping that one of his cons will lead to riches. Tax fraud, telemarketing tricks, government scams. Whatever it takes. When he’s not working the phones hustling fake promises, he dreams of a move that will finally announce his arrival.
When his girlfriend Natalie Mendoza vanishes, Hamid finds himself pulled into the orbit of former Guantanamo Bay detainee turned social-media imam Abdul Mohammad. On the surface, Abdul’s organization is virtuous: they are helping other detainees rehabilitate to life outside the prison. But as Hamid dives deeper into Abdul’s nebulous and luxurious world, he finds a confusing mix of religious zeal and cynical self-advancement. With his connection to the imam deepening, Hamid must decide just how far into darkness he can go before losing sight of himself.
Fiction
There Has to be a Knife
Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019.
PS8621 .H34 T54 2019
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Omar Ali is a ticking time bomb. A phone call from his ex-girlfriend Anna’s father plunges him into darkness when he learns that she’s committed suicide. Clueless and hurting, Omar turns to violence and petty crime to cope. His nefarious activities catch the attention of the RCMP, who pressure him into becoming an informant at a mosque they suspect harbours a terrorist cell. Unravelling from insomnia, sorrow, and rage, Omar grasps at his last shred of hope, embarking on a quest to find the note he’s convinced Anna left for him.
There Has to Be a Knife examines expectations – both intimate and political – on brown men, exploring ideas of cultural identity and the tropes we use to represent them.
Links
Adnan Khan personal website
Publisher Arsenal Pulp Press
Publisher Dundurn Press, owner of the Rare Machines imprint