A Pakistani barrister who summons mist-laden manors, haunted consciences and the slow decay of power — writing “with the assurance of someone descended from the lineage of Emily Brontë and Edgar Allan Poe.”
A rare voice reviving gothic romance and Victorian horror from Karachi.
Sana Sharifuddin Pirzada is a Karachi-based barrister, human rights defender and one of the very few Pakistani authors devoted to gothic fiction — a genre long dominated by Western writers. Trained in law at King’s College London, the London School of Economics and Lincoln’s Inn, she channels a lifelong fascination with mystery and the macabre into atmospheric tales of love, control and moral reckoning.
Her imagination first stirred at the age of twelve, when she read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, only later realising it belonged to the gothic tradition. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and the great horror classics would follow her into a writing life that defies the geographic and realist conventions of most Pakistani Anglophone fiction.
There are crimes of passion and then, there are passions that are crimes.— The Gavel and the Lotus
Six volumes of shadow, suspense and Victorian unease.
A literary critic, Jonathan, travels from London to Winter Grange and falls for his landlady — only to find nothing is as it seems. Set between the world wars and fusing the spirit of Dracula and Rebecca.
Silver · Global Ebook Awards 2017
A satisfying collection — a novella, two short stories and a narrative poem — venturing deeper into gothic shadowlands.
Bronze · Best Horror, Global Ebook 2019
The barrister’s twin passions converge — a thriller that braids courtroom intrigue with Victorian darkness.
An atmospheric tale that earned the author wider recognition for her command of dread and suspense.
Nominated · UBL Literature Awards 2024
Her fifth full-length work, continuing a singular oeuvre of haunting, morally charged storytelling.
Gold · Multicultural Fiction · Global Ebook Awards 2025
Her darkest, most assured work. Through an epistolary confession from elderly Mark Finchley, a twenty-year-old secret unfolds in mist-laden Cornwall — a morality tale, psychological thriller and gothic horror in one. Written in just two weeks.
What the press has said of Sana Pirzada’s gothic worlds.
“Arguably her most assured work to date.”
Read the review →“An admirable homage to the genre…”
Recommended by the US Review Read the review →“An excellent read for those craving a good murder mystery.”
Read the review →“Pirzada’s layered narrative will keep you guessing until the end.”
Read the review →“A masterful fusion of Victorian Gothic fiction and legal thriller.”
Read the coverage →The launch, and trailers conjured for each tale — shadow set in motion.
Book Trailers
From the Signing
Featuring the Author
Where the domestic sphere becomes a locus of terror.
Pirzada’s fiction lingers on grief, obsession and the insidious ways in which love can curdle into control. Her characters are never purely good or evil; they vacillate between extremes, reminding readers of the intricacies of human nature. From the perspective of a brown, Pakistani writer revisiting Victorian England, her work quietly interrogates Empire, propriety and the fear of the ‘other.’
Step a little closer to the author — for new releases, glimpses behind the veil and the occasional whisper from the writing desk.
@sanaspauthor
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Or write directly to sanaspirzada@gmail.com