Brother Alive

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| author = Zain Khalid

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| country = United States

| language = English

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| publisher = Grove Atlantic

| pub_date = July 12, 2022

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| isbn = 9780802159762

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}}Brother Alive is American writer Zain Khalid's debut novel. It received the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award{{Cite web |date=2023-06-16 |title=Zain Khalid has won the 2023 Young Lions Award. |url=https://lithub.com/zain-khalid-has-won-the-2023-young-lions-award/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Zain Khalid Wins The New York Public Library's Twenty-Third Young Lions Fiction Award |url=https://www.nypl.org/press/zain-khalid-wins-new-york-public-librarys-twenty-third-young-lions-fiction-award |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=The New York Public Library |language=en}} and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize{{Cite web |last=Valdez |first=Jonah |date=2023-02-01 |title=Here are the finalists for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Awards |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-01-31/finalists-the-2022-national-book-critics-circle-awards |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}} for best first book in any genre. It was also awarded the CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction,{{Cite web |date=2023-06-23 |title=Here are the winners of the 2023 Firecracker Awards. |url=https://lithub.com/here-are-the-winners-of-the-2023-firecracker-awards/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}} and was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize.{{Cite web |last=Schnelbach |first=Leah |date=2023-07-11 |title=Announcing the 2023 Shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction |url=https://electricliterature.com/announcing-the-2023-shortlist-for-the-ursula-k-le-guin-prize-for-fiction/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Electric Literature |language=en-US}} Khalid was named the recipient of the 2024 Bard Fiction Prize,{{Cite web |last=College |first=Bard |title=The Bard Fiction Prize at Bard College |url=https://www.bard.edu/bfp/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=www.bard.edu |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Zain Khalid Wins the Bard Fiction Prize |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/zain-khalid-wins-the-bard-fiction-prize/ |access-date=2023-09-26 |website=Kirkus Reviews |language=en}} and was awarded the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 prize.{{Cite web |last=Guy |first=Zoe |date=2024-03-19 |title=It’s the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 |url=https://www.vulture.com/article/national-book-foundation-5-under-35-2024.html |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=Vulture |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Andrews |first=Meredith |date=2024-03-15 |title=The National Book Foundation Announces its 2024 5 Under 35 Honorees |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/the-national-book-foundation-announces-its-2024-5-under-35-honorees/ |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=National Book Foundation |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last= |date=2024-03-19 |title=The National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Honorees for 2024 |url=https://bookriot.com/5-under-35-honorees-2024/ |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=BOOK RIOT |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |date=2024-03-19 |title=The National Book Foundation announces its 2024 5 Under 35 honorees. |url=https://lithub.com/the-national-book-foundation-announces-its-2024-5-under-35-honorees/ |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}

Reception

Brother Alive received favorable reviews from critics{{Cite news |last=Tosiello |first=Pete |date=2022-07-12 |title=A Debut Novel Explores Power in Many Forms, From Capital to Dogma |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/books/review/zain-khalid-brother-alive.html |access-date=2023-09-25 |issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite web |last=Bromwich |first=Jonah |date=2022-07-22 |title=The Novel That Captures New York City Right Now |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/07/zain-khalid-brother-alive-book-review/670619/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Haldane's Demand: On Zain Khalid's "Brother Alive" |url=https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/zain-khalid-brother-alive-review-essay |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Cleveland Review of Books |language=en-US}} and went on to win multiple awards.{{Cite web |date=2023-06-16 |title=Zain Khalid has won the 2023 Young Lions Award. |url=https://lithub.com/zain-khalid-has-won-the-2023-young-lions-award/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |date=2023-06-23 |title=Here are the winners of the 2023 Firecracker Awards. |url=https://lithub.com/here-are-the-winners-of-the-2023-firecracker-awards/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}} The New York Times named Khalid a Writer to Watch.{{Cite news |last=Harris |first=Elizabeth A. |last2=Williams |first2=John |last3=Khatib |first3=Joumana |date=2022-05-21 |title=Writers to Watch This Summer |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/books/summer-books-writers.html |access-date=2023-11-03 |issn=0362-4331}}

According to the review aggregator Book Marks, the book received four "Rave" reviews and one "Positive", "Mixed", and "Pan" review each.{{Cite web |title=Book Marks reviews of Brother Alive by Zain Khalid |url=https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/brother-alive// |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=Book Marks |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606115921/https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/brother-alive/ |url-status=live }}

Pete Tosiello, writing for The New York Times Book Review, called the novel "beguiling", noting that the "epistolary structure lend[s] a confessional tone". He further praised the writing style, noting, "Khalid is such a gifted commentator that his methods bear close examination [...] Brother Alive is neither a press bulletin nor a position paper. Khalid’s sentences abound with florid, poetic metaphors while maintaining the clipped, declarative tempo of Scripture."{{Cite news |last=Tosiello |first=Pete |date=2022-07-12 |title=A Debut Novel Explores Power in Many Forms, From Capital to Dogma |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/books/review/zain-khalid-brother-alive.html |access-date=2023-11-01 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=2023-03-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319052430/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/books/review/zain-khalid-brother-alive.html |url-status=live }}

Library Journal's Luke Gorham said the book is " One the most exciting debuts in recent years.” and that it is "blisteringly intelligent, bursting with profound feeling, and host to some of the most complex, necessary characters in recent memory." He referred to the novel as "genre-defying", noting that "Khalid’s vision can be bleak, even cynical, but it’s also remarkably cogent and underscored with a profound tenderness".{{Cite web |last=Gorham |first=Luke |date=2022-07-01 |title=Brother Alive |url=https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/brother-alive-1790659 |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=Library Journal |archive-date=2022-11-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221127085222/https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/brother-alive-1790659 |url-status=live }}

Publishers Weekly highlighted how "Khalid brilliantly reveals new shades of truth from each character’s point of view, and perfectly integrates the many ideas about capitalism and religious extremism into an enthralling narrative".{{Cite web |date=2022-05-13 |title=Brother Alive by |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780802159779 |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=Publishers Weekly |archive-date=2023-06-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623201722/https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780802159779 |url-status=live }}

The judges for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses Firecracker Award for Fiction described the book as "...surreal, complex, puzzling, mind-expanding, imaginative, original, and presciently relevant to our times."{{Cite web |date=2023-06-22 |title=Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Firecracker Awards |url=https://www.clmp.org/press-center/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2023-firecracker-awards/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Community of Literary Magazines and Presses |language=en-US}}

On behalf of the Cleveland Review of Books, Jonah Howell referred to it as "a smooth interleaving of science-fiction with high-resolution realism and hallucinatory phantasmagoria" and noted " that it’s one of those books that appear only seldomly and bellow, from the first page, from the first line, that they require, beyond the valence-judgements expected of a review, earnest, laborious exploration."{{Cite web |last=Howell |first=Jonah |date=2022-07-08 |title=Haldane’s Demand: On Zain Khalid's "Brother Alive" |url=https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/zain-khalid-brother-alive-review-essay |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=Cleveland Review of Books |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-09-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230926145734/https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/zain-khalid-brother-alive-review-essay |url-status=live }}

UK publication Buzz called the novel "An impressive feat of literary ambition".{{Cite web |last=Buzz |date=2022-08-24 |title=BROTHER ALIVE: family ties, secrets & shapeshifters in Zain Khalid's impressive debut |url=https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/brother-alive-zain-khalid-book-review/ |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=Buzz Magazine |language=en-GB}}

The Atlantic's Jonah Bromwich said, "The cynicism of Brother Alive is countered by the incredible warmth with which Khalid writes about his city". He also noted that the novel "feels like the first since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic that captures the mood of New York right now, describing a wounded city where, rather than holding on to what’s gone, residents are eager to rid themselves of the recent past". Bromwich noted, however, that "when the book leaves the city, it tumbles off its axis [...] without the backdrop of New York, the abstractions pile up and the churning plot ceases to satisfy".{{Cite web |last=Bromwich |first=Jonah |date=2022-07-22 |title=The Novel That Captures New York City Right Now |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/07/zain-khalid-brother-alive-book-review/670619/ |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=The Atlantic |language=en |archive-date=2023-06-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607192003/https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/07/zain-khalid-brother-alive-book-review/670619/ |url-status=live }}

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."{{Cite web |last=Hong |first=Terry |date=2022-05-20 |title=Brothers Alive |url=https://www.booklistonline.com/Brother-Alive/pid=9759356 |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=Booklist |archive-date=2023-11-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231101234512/https://www.booklistonline.com/Brother-Alive/pid=9759356 |url-status=live }}

Kirkus Reviews called the novel "bulky" and "ambitious", noting that "Khalid has plenty to say about art, relationships, religion, and family [...] But the novel creaks from its overabundance of ambition [...] Whatever power Brother might have as a symbol for hidden lives and alternate existences is sapped by the busy plotting. Khalid has an admirably encyclopedist instinct, but he’s set an almost impossibly high bar for storytelling".{{Cite web |date=2022-04-26 |title=Brother Alive |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/zain-khalid/brother-alive/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202080730/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/zain-khalid/brother-alive/ |archive-date=2023-02-02 |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=Kirkus Reviews}}

The novel has been translated to [https://kjona.eco/shop/produkt/zain-khalid-bruder/ German].

Awards

class="wikitable sortable" \|+Awards for Brother Alive !Year ! colspan="2" \|Award !Result !Ref
2022 \|National Book Critics Circle Award \|John Leonard Prize \|{{Sho}} \|
2023 \|Community of Literary Magazines and Presses \|Firecracker Award for Fiction \|{{won}} \|
2023 \|Ursula K. Le Guin Prize \|— \|{{Sho}} \|
2023 \|Ferro-Grumley Award \|LGBTQ Fiction \|{{Sho}} \|
2023 \|\|Young Lions Fiction Award \|— \|{{won}} \|
rowspan="1" \|2024 \|Bard Fiction Prize \|— \|{{won}}

class="wikitable sortable"

|+Awards for Brother Alive

!Year

! colspan="2" |Award

!Result

!Ref

2022

|National Book Critics Circle Award

|John Leonard Prize

|{{Sho}}

2023

|Community of Literary Magazines and Presses