Omar Shahid’s novel 'The Spinners Tale' being translated into Italian

After multiple awards, Omar Shahid Hamid a Senior Superintendent of Police heading the Intelligence unit of the Sindh Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) still maintains that he is only a police officer who is addicted to writing.

The day he launched his third book The Party Worker, his second book The Spinners Tale was also recognized. It was awarded the ‘Italy reads Pakistan’ prize by Metropoli d’Asia at the recent Karachi Literature Festival and is currently being translated into Italian.

First published in 2015, with its main characters – Ausi, inspired by Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Omar Abbasi modeled after Sanaullah Abbasi a well-known police officer in Sindh – can be used as an unofficial guide to understand how young Pakistanis turn to extremism.

We caught up Omar and had a chat about his book, the prize and whether his novels will ever be translated into Urdu.

The highlight of our chat was Omar reading a passage from The Spinner’s Tale; a passage that shows an Ausi before he becomes the most feared terrorist in the country.