Radiant Fugitives

Radiant Fugitives

By Nawaaz Ahmed

Counterpoint

2021

Working as a consultant for Kamala Harris’s attorney general campaign in Obama-era San Francisco, Seema has constructed a successful life for herself in the West, despite still struggling with her father’s long-ago decision to exile her from the family after she came out as lesbian. Now, nine months pregnant and estranged from the Black father of her unborn son, Seema seeks solace in the company of those she once thought lost to her: her ailing mother, Nafeesa, traveling alone to California from Chennai, and her devoutly religious sister, Tahera, a doctor living in Texas with her husband and children. 

But instead of a joyful reconciliation anticipating the birth of a child, the events of this fateful week unearth years of betrayal, misunderstanding, and complicated layers of love—a tapestry of emotions as riveting and disparate as the era itself.

Told from the point of view of Seema’s child at the moment of his birth, and infused with the poetry of Wordsworth and Keats and verses from the Quran, Radiant Fugitives is a moving tale of a family and a country grappling with acceptance, forgiveness, and enduring love. 

Nawaaz Ahmed

Nawaaz Ahmed is a transplant from Tamil Nadu, India. Before turning to writing, he was a computer scientist, researching search algorithms for Yahoo. He holds an MFA from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is the recipient of residencies from Macdowell, VCCA, Yaddo, and Djerassi. His debut novel Radiant Fugitives (2021) was a finalist for the 2022 Pen/Faulkner Award and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, was longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Aspen Literary Prize, and received the Gina Berriault award. He currently lives in Brooklyn.