Word Count: 3008 | Reading Time: 11 min
Tasavvur founder, Tehseen Baweja, and non-fiction editor, Mushba Said, sat down with Bangladeshi author, Saad Z. Hossain in November 2025 to discuss his upcoming novel, djinns, AI, and all things writing.
Saad Z. Hossain is a Bangladeshi speculative fiction author known for works like Djinn City (2017), The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday (2019), Cyber Mage (2021), and Kundo Wakes Up (2022), amongst others. He has been a finalist for the Locus and IGNYTE Awards as well as being long-listed for the British Science Fiction Association Award. He is presently working on his sixth book.
“It’s 80-90% done. It’s similar to wuxia novels but using our culture and mythology, like chakras and what’s native to us but applied to a kind of martial arts style, so yeah, let’s see.”
Before we started this interview, it felt like another unmemorable November evening — the kind that will blend into the ones before and after it. But hearing Hossain speak tells us that this conversation is about to make this evening very memorable. Hossain is speaking from his home in Dhaka, gracing a light blue shirt while seated comfortably on a sofa. Despite his calm aura and warm voice, Hossain has an almost child-like enthusiasm that comes through during our conversation, whether we discuss writing, or his upbringing, or djinns.
“Djinns have travelled a lot. They’ve come from the Arabian deserts and travelled all the way east, and they’re now part of our mythology as well, all over the subcontinent. Regardless of religion, I feel like people believe in djinns. There’s a resonance of this concept in people, they want to believe in djinns and find it natural for them to exist. And it’s interesting to me because we’re in such a divisive place right now in terms of religion, history, and identity–who belongs to what. But when it comes to these fantasy elements […] they belong to everybody.”
Hossain’s djinns are unique in their almost human-like behaviours, in contrast to their traditional counterparts. “It’s evolution. Five thousand years of evolution in civilisation, why would you be the same? If humans have changed so much in five thousand years (allegedly), why would this race, this mortal race, stay the same? Why would they be haunting trees?” Hossain finds the pre-existing perception of djinns in South Asia boring; cardboard cutout fantasy elements that we limit to “pantomime villains” when their character can be so much more complex in stories.
“The first reaction is ‘Oh you write about djinns’, and they expect horror stories or like stories about fantasy and djinns, and I’m like ‘you’re gonna be surprised about these djinns,’ they have political systems; they have culture; they hate each other; they fight. Characters have to be well-rounded. […] Every villager understands djinns, they have a view of djinns. So I felt comfortable making my own cause people would be able to see the difference. If you were to bring a foreign concept here, like let’s say you’re writing about Dracula in Bangla, maybe there’s not such a big identification with vampires in Bengali literature, so there’s no point in changing that. So it’s better to subvert the things that are already edified in somebody’s mind.”
Hossain’s speculative writing has garnered critical acclaim for its unique world-building that often incorporates distinct local settings with memorable characters, whether djinn or human. Playing with genre and often blending genres as he builds his intricate worlds, Hossain’s stories are a refreshing change. This begs the question: How does he come up with these stories?
“I start with a character. I always start with one character, that is the main character normally. I think about this character until it’s clear in my head how they would act and how they would talk. And then I write with that character, and that character will carry on – that’s the main story. I don’t know what will happen to him or her, it’s not clear to me where the story will go at all. But I have a firm idea of the nature of this character; of his intelligence; of his views; of how he speaks, his triggers, the faults he has […] Because if the character is bad, no amount of world building, no amount of dialogue or wit will help you if the main character is boring or you can’t identify with it. Also it’s important to have nuance and some kind of greyness–it can’t be a very evil character or good character, it should be something that’s relatable.”
Hossain began writing as a child with his friends in school; while his friends would eventually stop, Hossain continued writing, “I am often terminally bored, and I need this because it occupies my mind. Normal entertainment like popular television and movies, it doesn’t fully occupy me, like it’s not fully entertaining. So writing is a kind of answer to that.”
When asked if he ever thought that time writing stories would transpire into a career, he shakes his head in the negative. “I never expected a career to be honest – I hoped.” A Bangladeshi writer writing genre fiction in English; he felt he was too niche to be published. However, Hossain confesses that, as a child, one of his motivations to write a book was so he could talk about it at the school he was attending at the time, and he is smiling ear to ear as he tell us, “I had this dream all my life, and I think last year they finally invited me to speak at the school – I’d spoken at other places, but the school I actually attended, they finally asked me to speak for literature week.”
When reflecting on his journey as a writer, Hossain acknowledges how both books and community played their respective roles in helping him develop his craft. When he first started writing as a child, many of his early stories had a Tolkienesque quality; European fantasies about elves. He brushes off these works as nothing original, however he acknowledges how “It helped me because it taught me how to write. It didn’t say anything, but it taught me the skills. So now that I wanna say to something, I do have the skills.”
Later on in life, Hossain would go on to join a writing group, where chapter by chapter he would develop his first novel, Escape From Baghdad (2015). He notes how, at that point in time as a new writer, having a community of writers he trusted and respected motivated him, as feedback on each chapter helped him feel more grounded in his craft and more enthusiastic to finish his novel. However, Hossain is quick to point out how the tides shift as one becomes more experienced as a writer, “When you have a body of work, you know I can do this. You should have doubts in the beginning, they make you better; nervous energy makes you try harder, and writing is about polishing a lot of it. But don’t get criticism as an older writer, it deflects during the work.” He feels as an experienced writer, it is more beneficial to get feedback once a piece is completed. Today, Hossain has a simple approach to his writing, he keeps the file open everyday; sometimes he’ll tinker and edit, sometimes he’ll write, but he doesn’t believe in forcing himself. And while Hossain believes in writing emotionally, he does acknowledge that being an emotional writer means that at times one is often waiting for life to settle down before one can sit down for the perfect moment to write, but there is no perfect moment to write and instead one should “write through the chaos.”
When asked about where he sees speculative fiction writing going in South Asia, Hossain is passionate about pointing out how, culturally and historically, South Asia as a whole is perfect for the genre. “If we can forget about genre and just write then our speculative fiction is the richest area. It’s a gold mine cause we have all the history, all the culture, all the layers; we have conquerors, we have defenders, we have independence movements; we have all this huge material and this is all really useful for speculative fiction. This long history, this immense thing that goes back to Mohenjodaro, this Gangaridai, this cross-culture of so many influences – we should use it. But genre holds us back because we think ‘okay, don’t write genre. You wanna be a writer? Be a serious writer – be a journalist or write literature. What are you doing?’ This stigma should go, [rather] we need to teach [writers to] just write, the genre will take care of itself.”
Whether writing in English or our mother tongues, Hossain believes we still don’t have the infrastructure to support speculative fiction, and the onus falls upon the existing community to grow the genre and help new writers to navigate publishing waters. “I think the writers we have, which are not that many, but the few of us here, it’s our job to do this – to build something. […] I wanted to set up a writer’s residency in Bangladesh, because we don’t have one and every country kind of has one residency that’s open to international writers. So I’m working on that to get something off the ground, something like six people for at least two, three weeks. We can make it bigger later. And that would also kind of encourage writing, kind of give people a chance, see the country, local writers could also meet some of these people. So everybody has to chip in, I think in our situation the ecosystem isn’t there – like the money isn’t there – so it has to be chipped in until it gets there.”
A common struggle for writers of colour is the need to negotiate their culture in their writing for what is a predominantly Western/White publishing industry. But Hossain’s stories don’t seem to struggle at all with this; they blend everyday Bangladeshi/South Asian life with the fantastical, without dumbing down or exoticising culture. “I can only do what I like to do and still live with myself and not write another version of Star Trek.” Hossain credits his publishers, Unnamed Press, for giving him free reign with his novels, and also credits his readers, pointing out that it would be a disservice to unnecessarily simplify his stories for a readership that reads his work for the chaotic complexity. While he does admit this limits the marketability of his work, he is quick to emphasise on the importance of writers not taking on the worry of who to write for, “There is no way, if you write for an audience, that you will be successful – not as a writer, maybe money-wise. But not for the sense that writers have of “I have produced a piece of work I am proud of and I will stand by.”
Hossain is not one to shy away from research; his novel, Djinn City (2017), contains a reference list and glossary at the end. When asked how he manages rabbit holes, he is quick to smile and confess he doesn’t. “Rabbit holes are the joy of writing.” He cites how he spent two years watching 11 seasons of Forged In Fire in order to understand the dynamics of sword and knife forging, or how he’s read thousands of chapters of wuxia novels for the current novel he is working on. “Writing doesn’t pay but it allows you to research whatever your heart desires,” he points out. This stands true for Hossain, whose day job is managing his family’s businesses, from a jute factory to drilling wells for the city. He recalls his childhood spent with his father at drilling sites, translating machinery manuals for workers. He is quick to acknowledge “I’m very lucky and very privileged to have inherited these businesses.” In the distant past, Hossain has also organised events and ran a restaurant with friends for a few years. Anyone who has read his work can probably recall these details showing up in his stories, whether it’s scenes depicting the intricacies of cooking or his characters tinkering with machinery. “Everything helps the writing.”
One can safely say that subversion in storytelling is almost like Hossain’s north star; it has and continues to guide how he writes his stories and what he wants to write about, whether it’s the subject matter or the rebellious nature of his characters. “When you write for yourself you have to entertain yourself. So you want to have characters you enjoy – writing them, reading them, revising them. The other part is I think that writers are naturally rebellious in nature. I mean normally you’re fighting something or you’re saying something about authority that you don’t like. So it’s normal to have characters like that where we fight something, either overt authority or cultural authority – any kind of authority is like a red flag – you have to fight authority, that’s your job as a writer. In any kind of writing if you’re peddling the status quo, why are you even bothering? It’s already like that, it doesn’t need more support from you. I feel like any kind of writing – genre, literature, anything – it should subvert some aspect of life.”
Even when discussing AI, Hossain’s first thought is to subvert it before we can even complete the question. “Look at some point you’re gonna get organic AI,” he begins, hand on his chin, eyes staring out into the distance as he begins stringing together his thoughts. “Because a human brain, electricity-wise, is much more efficient than a corresponding electronic brain, which uses thousands of times more electricity. So eventually someone will start making artificial intelligence using biological material, which is essentially a brain. The lines of ‘is this living and non-living’ [are] gonna be very blurry; is it a living thing or is it a non living thing, is it made by God or is it made by man? What’s the difference? Does consciousness mean you have a soul? So we have a metaphysical conversation that needs to be had to determine whether this thing has rights as a human or non human.” He takes a pause and now you can really see the gears in his head turning, as he ponders on the idea of AI automating politics and, specifically, politicians, “Why do we need three hundred MPs? Let’s just have one human Prime Minister and three hundred AI MPs who look after their constituency. And they come with their budget and their problems, and they each negotiate their own thing, and they’re not stealing, because they’re AI, they don’t need it. They need electricity, so maybe they steal electricity, I don’t know. How do you corrupt an AI?” That is a story idea that perhaps one of you reading should explore.
But when it comes to AI and writing, Hossain is quick to point out that “I don’t necessarily want wisdom from an AI about human nature. And that’s kind of the problem – as far as I understand it’s just regurgitated [content]. The AI reads every Russian novel and creates a masterpiece that’s part Nabokav part Dyostevsky, and you’d be like this is great this has something but really it’s just regurgitated from those guys. So I think we can agree that the regurgitated wisdom nobody wants, but what if AI has original thought? What if it becomes intelligent enough that it’s making ten degrees of separation kind of connections and creating its own ideas instead of cutting and pasting.”
This begs the question, what is original thought? Is everything that we say not a by-product of something we’ve seen or read or heard? We will leave you with Hossain’s eloquent take on the criticality of the human experience: “One thing is that we are writing from an experience of the human condition, with it’s frailties, fears, and emotional impact; that’s the reality of it. We all fall in love; we all feel fear; we all have hate; we have enemies; we have friends; we have parents – we experience the same things, so why do we need to say it like five million times? Isn’t one book about love enough then? Do you need both Count of Monte Cristo and Hamlet? Isn’t one revenge story enough? It’s the same story, but no it’s not enough, because each person’s take on the human take – being a human – is interesting to me. Because I want to know your nuance; maybe it corresponds a little bit to mine and that would increase my wisdom, or my understanding of myself, or the world around me, which I crave. At the end of the day I want to understand myself better, I want to understand people better, because hell is other people and also heaven is other people. What we crave is for people to understand and for us to understand people, even our loved ones. This is why anything written by humans about humans [acts] as a validity; if a human wrote about, let’s say, the love life of elephants, it wouldn’t have the same traction– it would be interesting, like ‘Oh that’s creative, you wrote about elephant psychology’, but would you wanna have five hundred books about elephant love life written by humans? Probably not. It’s a gimmick, you would have one or two. But we have millions of stories about the same thing; we enjoy it, we read it, we call them masterpieces, because the wisdom given by humans about themselves, their own condition is relatable.”