Soniah Kamal

Soniah Kamal is a Pakistani-American writer. She is the author of two novels, An Isolated Incident (2014) and Unmarriageable (2019). The latter is a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice set in Pakistan in 2000 and 2001.

Kamal was born in Karachi, Pakistan and attended an English-medium school. She subsequently lived in England and Saudi Arabia, and then attended St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland as an undergraduate, studying philosophy.

Kamal published her first novel, An Isolated Incident, in 2014. It is set in Kashmir, the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Reviewing the book for Dawn, Fareeha Rafique wrote, "Kamal’s beautiful use of language is what carries her story." An Isolated Incident was a finalist for the 2016 Townsend Prize for Fiction from The Chattahoochee Review and the Georgia Center for the Book.

Unmarriageable

Kamal's second novel, Unmarriageable, was published January 22, 2019. The retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice features Pakistani English teacher (and Austen fan) Alys Binat and her four sisters, a formerly high-society family that has fallen on comparatively hard times owing to family betrayal. Their mother is anxious to see her daughters married, particularly Alys and Jena (the two eldest), but the task is a challenge as the family has lost most of its money and former social standing. Set in Pakistan in 2000 and 2001, the Binat sisters traverse a diverse Pakistani social and cultural scene as their mother attempts to encourage opportunities to encounter suitors. Jena meets a kind and wealthy man, Fahad Bingla—affectionately called "Bungles"—but Bungles' best friend Valentine Darsee and protagonist Alys take a quick dislike to one another, which, along with the intervention of Bungles' snobbish sisters, prevents the pair's budding relationship from moving forward. Jena is heartbroken. Yet, partly through Mrs. Binat's persistence in promoting her daughters' social engagements, the families' social circles keep intersecting and Darsee eventually finds that he has fallen in love with Alys, who shares his love of books as well as a cosmopolitan outlook born of childhoods partly lived abroad. He abruptly proposes marriage, which she rejects, both because of an early insult she overheard him make toward both her appearance and her intelligence, and because his cousin Jeorgeullah Wickaam has recounted to Alys how Darsee cruelly cut Wickaam, an orphan, out of the family will. Desperate to regain Alys's trust, Darsee writes her a letter apologizing for his role in keeping Bungles from Jena as well as confiding the true reason for Wickaam's disinheritance: Wickaam had fathered, then abandoned, numerous children out of wedlock with servant women, and, ultimately with Darsee's sister. Family money allows his sister to travel to Europe to seek an abortion, but the lower-income women he had previously fathered children with did not have this option, nor any support from Wickaam in raising their children, so Darsee and family elect to spend Wickaam's inheritance establishing a school for disadvantaged students that his children could also attend. Darsee comes to the rescue again when it is Alys's party-girl youngest sister, Lady, whose reputation is in trouble: she too runs away with Wickaam, who demands to be paid $100,000 to marry her and restore the Binat sisters' good name. The family has no way to afford the ransom, but Darsee pays it secretly, attending the small wedding ceremony himself to make certain Wickaam would go through with the marriage rather than abscond with the money and abandon Lady as he had the mothers of his children. Alys and Darsee each tell Jena and Bungles they have seriously misjudged the situation and Bungles immediately proposes to Jena. Alys begins to warm to Darsee, particularly after learning he was the one to rescue her youngest sister, and when he proposes again, she accepts.

Publishers Weekly called the book "a funny, sometimes romantic, often thought-provoking glimpse into Pakistani culture, one which adroitly illustrates the double standards women face when navigating sex, love, and marriage. This is a must-read for devout Austenites." Reviewing the novel for NPR, Ilana Masad wrote, "Kamal's Unmarriageable succeeds in being both a deliciously readable romantic comedy and a commentary on class in post-colonial, post-partition Pakistan, where the effects of the British Empire still reverberate."

Kamal has three children. She lives in Georgia.