Brother Alive

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Buzz (2022-08-24). "BROTHER ALIVE: family ties, secrets & shapeshifters in Zain Khalid's impressive debut". Buzz Magazine . Retrieved 2023-11-03.

On a similar note, Booklist's Terry Hong said the novel is "riotous with erudition" and that the "multilayered, nonlinear narrative turns unwieldy and ultimately disappointing as an exercise in sly cleverness rather than rewarding storytelling." [23] We’re in someone’s kitchen; a kid is sitting on the floor. Presumably theirs. Whoever they are, they’re not here. The kid can’t see us, not now; but in the future, he knows we’re here, for he, narrating, has brought us in. (Later, we learn that the kid’s name is Youssef.) We’re in a mosque, in the kitchen. Or near a mosque, at least; and the Imam is there. Night. It feels like night; the words tumble over each other like night. “Time unwinds and winds.” And with Youssef lurks a still-shadowed presence—first a beetle, then a child, but still somehow neither—which Youssef later names “Brother.” Whatever it, or he, is, this Brother is certainly significant: His name is Youssef’s first word, and this, in turn, is the first thing he has chosen to tell us, here, before the first chapter. It is already clear that Brother will be with him for the rest of his life. This wildly ambitious novel seeks to break new ground in big-issue territory like provenance, race, class, birth and rebirth … Take note of Zain Khalid’s name.”— Big Issue (UK) Stylistically brilliant and intellectually acute, Brother Alive is a remarkable novel of family, capitalism, power, sexuality, and the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.ZKWell, project housing is always named after some titan of industry, or a scion of some sort, or lousy presidents. And Coolidge was one of the worst. I was talking about this with a friend recently. It’s like people from Staten Island turn into conflagrations because you hate everything about the place because even though Manhattan feels within arm’s reach, you are removed from it. You see the city progressing, you see it advancing, you see all of this capital and culture pouring into it, whereas Staten Island didn’t have that. When I was coming up, our only cultural export was the Wu-Tang Clan. A novel with the polish and warmth of a stone smoothed in the hand after a lifetime of loving worry—original, darkly witty, sometimes bitter, and so very wise. And certainly the debut of a major new writer.”— Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel MBBrother’s diet of knowledge and art, and his particular taste for literature made me wonder how these reflected upon your own experience of intellectual consumption. MB The story begins with a “family” —an imam and his three adopted sons— living above a mosque in Staten Island. From where did this premise arise?

In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and share a bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Island’s most diverse and underserved neighborhoods. The three boys are an inseparable trio, but conspicuous: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef indeterminately Middle Eastern. Youssef shares everything with his brothers, except for one secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother. Brother persists as a companion into Youssef’s adult life, supporting him but also stealing his memories and shaking his grip on the world. Khalid’s writing is lyrical, with the precise vocabulary of a poetry and a surveyor’s eye for details, yet Brother Alive never gets lost in its erudition—the prose is delightful and clear ... Ultimately a work of profound sadness as much as political savvy, Brother Alive is a stunning debut.”— Rain Taxi Review of Books BROTHER ALIVE is a novel about a family bound together by history and choice instead of genetics. I had heard of this novel and was intrigued. When I borrowed it from the library I couldn’t put it down. The novel is divided into three sections. When I reached the second section, which is narrated by Imam Salim, I welcomed his voice. I'd seen the questions the boys he's raising had regarding both him and their birth parents, and this section provided responses to those questions and many more. I didn't feel the fondness for him that I felt for the boys, but I don't think the author wanted me to. Imam Salim is a conflicted character who inspires conflicting feelings.

Schnelbach, Leah (2023-07-11). "Announcing the 2023 Shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction". Electric Literature . Retrieved 2023-09-25. Khalid divulges early on that an Imam and businessman named Ibrahim had attempted, when Imam Salim was still a young man, to develop a neurologic compound that would make nonbelievers into devout Muslims. And some relation to Ibrahim—Khalid withholds precise explanation of the events for later—has left Salim, Youssef, and an unknown number of others ill with a permanent, parasitic double. Their respective Brothers feed on their thoughts and experiences—first those that they offer, then those that they don’t.

Brother Aliveis a remarkable work. Zain Khalid creates an immersive world rich in compelling detail. But even more impressively, Khalid achieves a kind of resistance text against our endemic inhumanity. The thrill lies in witnessing such a cogent and powerful intellect tune in to the music of life. An inspiring reminder of the great capacity of novels.”— Sergio de la Pava, author of A Naked Singularity

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An artist must understand his subject matter.” This seemingly banal demand, from speculatively inclined biochemist J.B.S. Haldane in his 1923 lecture to the Cambridge Heretics, modestly titled “Daedalus of Science and the Future.” After an aside on ferroconcrete architecture, Haldane clarifies: “we must see that possible poets are instructed, as their masters [Milton and Shelley] were, in science and economics.” Haldane, master of the loaded phrase—at the tip of his pen, a recommendation that writers receive education in the sciences does not simply mean that they should take science courses. Howell, Jonah (2022-07-08). "Haldane's Demand: On Zain Khalid's "Brother Alive" ". Cleveland Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2023-09-26 . Retrieved 2023-11-01. An astonishing debut novel about family, sexuality, and capitalist systems of control, following three adopted brothers who live above a mosque in Staten Island with their imam father Barron, Michael (25 August 2022). "If You Reject Your Identity, You Are Boundless: Zain…". BOMB Magazine. Archived from the original on 21 April 2023 . Retrieved 21 April 2023.