In Slender Gray Streaks

About the Book

"It has been a revelation to see my friend resurrected before my eyes in language that sparkles with his poetic spirit and keen intellect. This book ensures that all who knew and admired him will have a literary snapshot that lets Shahzad's spirit shine forth. We need not have only the sad memory of his final months to console us. The beauty of such poems as 'The Leaf that Shakes' or 'For It Was on God's Loom' depict a soul who loved and respected all God's creation."

-From the Foreword by Thomas Mullaney

In precise analytical prose and haunting lyrics, In Slender Gray Streaks: Verse and Prose from the Writings of Shahzad Najmuddin charts the journey of a traveler between two worlds: Pakistan and America, the world of the optimist and the world of the painful truth.

Najmuddin includes essays on artist Jean Metzinger's "Soldier at a Game of Chess," which is exhibited in the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. He also tells a fable about a man and his wife living on the banks of the Brahmaputra River and the genocide committed there on the Bengalis in the war of 1971.

A haunting, lyrical collection, In Slender Gray Streaks beautifully showcases Najmuddin's writing talent.

About the Author

While Shahzad Z. Najmuddin (1961?2002) lay in the hospital shortly before he passed away, thieves broke into his apartment. Finding nothing of value, they vandalized it, destroying numerous handwritten manuscripts. In Slender Gray Streaks has carefully been pieced together, literally from hundreds of scraps of paper.