‘Do you think pity absolves you? No, pity is something to be offered to a dog lamed by a car, a bird with broken wings, a worm cleft in half. It is better to kill a human being than to pity him.’
At a literary event, when the narrator screams, ‘Drown all the refugees,’ he means every word. After all, he has had close encounters with displaced people—his boyfriend Abdul is Palestinian; and his childhood best friend Pedro crossed India’s border illegally to live the phantasmagoric American dream.
Neither Abdul nor Pedro can return—for Abdul is dead; and Pedro’s whereabouts remain mysterious. That is, until Maria, the narrator’s childhood nurse and Pedro’s mother, turns to the occult to bring back her son. What she recovers is not her exuberant young boy, but someone who is a husk of himself. What happened to Pedro during his journey west, or his passage back?
As the narrator tries getting to the bottom of the mystery, he sees that every revelation holds both violence and terror; and that there’s more on heaven and earth than is dreamt of in his philosophy. A work of Gothic horror, Drown All the Refugees is Khair at his finest—assured and outraged—rejecting the reader’s pity, the onlooker’s distress, and asking instead for something more substantial, perhaps a reordering of a world in disarray.
What the press and critics say:
Midday
Author Tabish Khair: ‘We’re watching, and it isn’t affecting us’
30 June, 2026 09:09 AM IST | Mumbai | Nandini Varma
Acclaimed author Tabish Khair addresses the global issue of migration and its fallout in his new book that is set in a Gothic universe.
Man Asian Literary Prize (2010) shortlisted author Tabish Khair was in the city as part of his book tour. We caught up with him to discuss his new release, Drown All the Refugees (HarperCollins India), which explores displacement through Gothic tropes. …
Outlook
In This World: Review of Tabish Khair’s ‘Drown All the Refugees’
Published at: 2 July 2026 8:02 pm by Vineetha Mokkil
Khair uses Gothic horror in his novel to paint a stark picture of the times we live in.
Tabish Khair’s new novel, Drown All the Refugees, is an anguished cry from the heart. Khair has explored the themes of displacement, alienation and the toll of leaving home in his works before. In Drown All the Refugees, he uses elements of Gothic horror to paint a haunting picture of the times we live in. Ours is a world in which refugees and immigrants are either forgotten or left to fend for themselves in the most brutal circumstances. Spectres haunt the landscape of Khair’s novel. Those who leave dream of home; those who are left behind mourn the ones who fled, the ones they lost. …
Frontline
Commercialisation has already done more damage to literature than AI: Tabish Khair
Published : Jun 28, 2026 11:54 IST – 11 MINS READ by Majid Maqbool
The award-winning writer says AI will mostly affect commercially driven fiction, while literature that asks difficult questions faces a deeper challenge from the market.
In Tabish Khair’s recently published novel Drown All the Refugees (HarperCollins India), the narrator shouts “Drown all the refugees” at a crowded literary gathering as the novel opens. The outburst springs from the anguish of his exiled life: his lover Abdul, a Palestinian, is dead, while his childhood friend Pedro, who crossed borders in search of a better life, never returned. The novel follows the narrator’s obsession as he confronts loss, absence, and the trauma of displacement. …
Grazia
Tabish Khair’s Drown All The Refugees Turns Migration Into A Gothic Mystery
by Shweta Sunny Published on Jun 26, 2026, 14:20 IST
Tabish Khair’s Drown All The Refugees blends Gothic fiction and migration narratives in a haunting tale of displacement, memory and hope.
Set in Northeast India, the book explores displacement, grief and belonging through a supernatural narrative
What happens when someone returns home after crossing borders, only to come back unrecognisable? In Drown All The Refugees, Tabish Khair takes that unsettling question and transforms it into a haunting Gothic tale about migration, memory and the human cost of displacement. …
