Birth— 
Where—India
Raised in—India, Pakistan, USA
Education— 
Currently—Chicago

Bibliography

To Be with Her (2010)

Syed Afzal Haider, senior editor at Chicago Quarterly Review, was born in India, grew up in Pakistan, and was educated in America, studying electrical engineering, psychology, and social work. After twenty plus years he forsook them all and escaped to writing.

His short stories and essays have appeared in a variety of literary magazine including Saint Ann’s Review, AmerAsia, Rambunctious Review, The Journal of Pakistani Literature, and Indian Voices. His short stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and have won best short fiction awards; Oxford University Press, Milkweed Editions, Penguin Books, and Pearson, Longman Literature have anthologized Haider. He has stories forth coming in Marco Polo and Trajectory.

He lives in Evanston, IL, with his wife and is the father of two wonderful, grown up boys.

To Be with Her
Syed Afzal Haider’s debut novel, To Be With Her, traces the journey of a young man perpetually on the move: from India to Pakistan as a young child during the partition; to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for college; then to Chicago for work; and, finally, home again, where Ramzan Pervez Malik, or Rama, must decide between old love and new. “You can leave places,” young Rama thinks as he gazes at the night sky from the boat that takes him away from Pakistan for the first time, “but your losses travel with you” .

Short Story: Ablutions by Syed Afzal Haider
Before retiring to sleep, Sibte made sure that the clock sitting on the wooden shelf on the wall next to his bed was wound and the alarm knob pulled. He blew the flame off the lantern, the Arabic numerals on the face of the clock glowed green in the dark. He closed his eyes and silently prayed.