The Age of Calamities

An astounding debut, so full of wonder, outrage, invention, fireworks, sheer brilliance. Ahmad breaks time and turns history upside down and inside out. This book is so beautifully written and so completely fresh, I was left stunned at the sheer originality of Ahmad’s extraordinary voice. You have never seen anything like this before – Edward Carey, author of Little
Wickedly playful in so many ways, The Age of Calamities is subversive, hilarious and shockingly original. Ahmad stamps on the rulebook and the result is a roaring success – Rosanna Pike, author of A Little Trickerie
Playful, daring and incisive, I romped through these delightful stories. Ahmad is a true, unique talent – Kat Dunn, author of Hungerstone
Ahmad’s stories interrogate how we study and think of historical figures and eras, while also introducing an exciting and unique new voice in fiction. The Age of Calamities is surreal, funny and endlessly thought-provoking, with each story a whole universe on its own * Dazed *
An addictive blend of imagination and wit, written in a singularly compelling voice. The author’s masterful command of the short story and of the historical figures she revitalizes will make you want to read and re-read this transcendent collection – Katherine J. Chen, author of Joan
I loved Ahmad’s perilously playful journeys to other timescapes and other planes of reality. Darkly funny, plangent, bittersweet – Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells
Ahmad’s work is full of imaginative daring and electrifying humour. These fiercely inventive stories reminded me of Angela Carter in their interrogation of the past and their insistence on re-imagining the present. Ahmad is an exhilarating new talent – Naomi Booth, author of Animals at Night
Ahmad’s stories are a wonder. Her prose is wild, incantatory, upending. Each turn of the page surprised me anew, and carried me off in completely unexpected directions – Claire Oshetsky, author of Chouette
If reality is finally destroyed here, what Senaa Ahmad builds from the wreckage just might be more gorgeous, more crazy, and more necessary, than the world we’ve left behind – Ben Marcus, award-winning author of The Flame Alphabet
Ahmad’s stories are dazzlingly inventive… These stories make it clear how ancient history and myths still linger in contemporary life-but also propose the radical possibility that we may yet escape or alter old patterns and old wounds – Kelly Link, award-winning author of The Book of Love and White Cat, Black Dog
The past comes to unexpected, vivid life in these speculative short stories… A debut teeming with strange delights * Publishers Weekly *
History rubs shoulders with the present in this surprising and deliciously strange collection of stories. The absurd shows itself gloriously, beautifully and with a great deal of fun, on every page. But it also casts shadows. These odd stories are powerful. Short, yet far from small, their bigness will pull you in then leave you moved, perplexed and full of admiration. Wonderful writing that had me in its grasp to the very last sentence – Nydia Hetherington, author of Sycorax
Stunning in its power, purpose, and ambition, The Age of Calamities alters the fabric of history. Anne Boleyn is killed and then resurrected a hundred times over, the Romanov sisters learn to time travel, and in a choose-your-own-adventure story, a lab assistant at Los Alamos searches for Dr. Oppenheimer as the desert grows lungs. Diving headfirst into the absurd, Senaa Ahmad’s stories unsettle the past and present as the world we think we know shifts beneath our feet – Maggie Su, author of Blob: A Love Story
If you want to read a spectacular collection of time-warping stories, look no further than The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad. In these gorgeously bizarre tales, the past wriggles gleefully into the present… a cornucopia of gobstopping stories, richly told * Big Issue *

Senaa Ahmad’s short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Best Canadian Stories, and elsewhere.

She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the Sunburst Award, and was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction. The Age of Calamities is her first book.

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