The Surrogate

Mustafa Abubaker's debut novel published at just sixteen years of age. Very rare.

Faraz plays devoted father to adoptee Fahad, and together, the two grapple with the loss of wife and mother Raiyah in Chicago. Narrated in the second person by Faraz in the form of letters, he makes sure to recount everything in his path in life with his son. Fahad goes through the process of first-world American adolescence with all the skepticism a typical American teenage boy does, questioning his religion to his morals to his own role in society and life.

A tale of selflessness, deceit, adolescent struggle, and love, The Surrogate is a post-911, disarmingly intimate reveal about the mercurial nature of familial devotion within broken families. The first novel from Mustafa Abubaker, The Surrogate is a coming-of-age story for those enamored with magical realism and who have an affinity for the romantic side of literature.