Jamil Nasir


lawyer, author, science fiction


Born ? in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

"Jamil Nasir was born in Chicago, Illinois of a Palestinian refugee father and the American daughter of the inventor of the fork-lift truck. He spent much of his childhood in the Middle East, where he survived two major wars, hiding in cellars and storerooms with his family. He returned to the United States and started college at age 14, studying hard sciences, philosophy of science, English literature, psychology, and Chinese literature and philosophy, finally graduating from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a Bachelors of General Studies.

"Between college stints he hitchhiked extensively over much of North America, working as a carpenter, assistant gardener on an estate, shop clerk, warehouseman, apple-picker, and paralegal, among others. He finally found himself back in Ann Arbor, where he got a law degree in 1983. Since then he has been employed part-time at a major Washington, D.C. law firm.

"He has sold science fiction stories to Asimov's , Universe (vols. 1,2, and 3), Interzone , Aboriginal SF , and a number of other magazines and anthologies, including Steve Pasechnick's 1990 best-of-the-year anthology Best of the Rest , and Dozois' and Dann's Angels! , a reprint anthology. He won a First Prize in the 1988 Writers of the Future competition [this is worrying! --ed.].

"Mr. Nasir meditates three hours a day, likes to cook, listen to music, play computer games, read, and walk. He lives with his wife and two small daughters in the Maryland countryside 25 miles outside Washington. Quasar is his first novel." [publisher's bumpf, in Quasar, US pbk, 1995]

"For me writing is a way of trying to touch something -- what you might call the wild sacred, the flames from heaven. That's hard these days: traditional religions are fossilized, metaphysics is out of fashion, and science is still tiresomely narrow. It's every man for himself in the late 20th century; writing is my way of surviving." --Jamil Nasir (publicity quote for The Higher Space, US pbk, 1996).



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