Omar Khayyam Shakil

The novel's protagonist, who feels himself "not even the hero of his own life," is an anti-hero. He has three mothers but no known father. From birth, he feels his life is inverted and peripheral. His materially privileged childhood is marred by isolation from the world and he lives in a fantasy he never fully overcomes. He educates himself as best he can from books and while gaining freedom at age 12 to attend school, remains a voyeur. A mentor, Eduardo Rodrigues, convinces Omar to study medicine, but vanishes after marrying the first love of Omar's life, Farah Zoroaster, whom Omar has hypnotized and may have impregnated. Omar becomes a world-famous immunologist, but also a reprobate human being, leading the rich playboy Iskander ("Isky") Harappa into a life of debauchery. Only when Isky wants to enter politics does he sever relations with loud-mouthed, indiscrete Omar. Fat and...