"[2] Her family resettled in Pakistan shortly before the country's military dictator, General Zia, declared martial law—she has said that these changes, personal and political, were her "transition from childhood to adulthood.
Despite the pressures imposed on her by her family, and by society, Amal goes on to become the first woman paleontologist to work with men in the mountains of Pakistan to look for fossils of ancient whales.
[14] Khan's fourth novel, Thinner than Skin, was published in 2012 in the US, and subsequently in Canada, India, France, Turkey, UK, and Pakistan, and is slated for release in Egypt in 2021.
In a joint statement, the jury explained its choice for selecting Khan's book for "The eloquent and elegant way in which she reveals a myriad of different worlds with masterly restraint.
Through the carefully structured plot and the well-wrought patterns of recurring images and incidents, emerge insights about homeland, belonging and dislocation, central to contemporary Pakistani life.
"[18] For its reconstruction of a time and place never before written in English-language fiction, it has been called a record in itself[19] Author Pankaj Mishra has said: "The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali brilliantly excavates a forgotten past of several societies and honours its human complexity with a narrative of delicate precision.
[25] Khan's fiction has also appeared in numerous anthologies, including "Now Pray: Notes on a Separation" in AGNI (magazine) #92 in October 2020, described as a "landmark work that deals at least in part with the global Sars-Cov-2 pandemic and our tumultuous times";[26][27] "The Origin of Sweetness" in Desi Delicacies: Food Writing from Muslim South Asia in December 2020;[28] "The News at His Back" (an extract from Thinner Than Skin) in The Massachusetts Review.
[29] "Ice, Mating" in Granta magazine's highly popular edition on Pakistan;[30] and "Look, But With Love" (an extract from Trespassing) in And the World Changed: Contemporary Stories by Pakistani Women (The Feminist Press).