An Excerpt from Shamal Days By Sabin Iqbal

A middle-aged bachelor heading the editorial at a newspaper in an imagined country in the Arabian Gulf, Abbas is beset by loneliness and the attendant regret - a life punctuated by ifs and maybes, and the dreariness of the dry and dusty shamal winds. Presented with the opportunity to finally bring about change in his life, will indecision get the better of him or will he be able to steer his life away from his less-than-beautiful reality?

Set in the 1990s, with the escalating violence in West Asia serving as a backdrop, this is the story of Abbas and of the small newsroom that brings together people - from different backgrounds and with individual stories but shared editorial goof-ups - to a country built and run by the expatriate workforce.

Shamal Days is a whimsical, ironic take on the aspirations and resentments of expatriate life in a tiny desert country and on the political unrest in the region.