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Los Angeles Book Festival Awards 'SIKANDER' Top Honors
Hollywood, CA
Monday, March 07, 2011
M. Salahuddin Khan, debut author of highly acclaimed novel SIKANDER took top honors at the Los Angeles Book Festival for 2010
Video Clip: Click to Watch
M. Salahuddin Khan, debut author of highly acclaimed novel SIKANDER took top honors at the Los Angeles Book Festival for 2010, Friday evening (March 4th). Auspiciously, the event took place at the Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood, site of the very first Academy Awards in 1929.
His 586-page novel, SIKANDER, follows the coming of age and maturing of a young Pakistani who befriends and joins Afghan mujahideen warriors in their fight against Soviet occupation in the mid 1980's. It examines America's roller-coaster relationship with the people of the region and with Islam in general, from thirty years ago into the present day post-9/11 era. But it's a human story delving into how common people have been touched by geopolitical events. The way in which the world stage reaches into an individual's heart and mind. It also examines events from both sides of the cultural divide and weaves the main character's life through those events. "I'm truly blown away by this ringing endorsement," remarked Khan. "It's one thing to win in the fiction class, but to be seen by the panel of judges as the best book over all fiction, non-fiction, young adult, children's, cookbooks and so on, is phenomenal." It was Khan's first ever contest entry but probably won't be his last. It also comes hot on the heels of his being signed up March 2nd with New York-based publishing guru and Publishers Weekly's Publisher-of-the-Year (2005), Larry Kirshbaum's LJK Literary Management agency. A few weeks ago Khan passed another major milestone by having SIKANDER stocked at selected brick-and-mortar Barnes & Noble stores. M. Salahuddin Khan was born in the small town of Burewala about 6 hours south of Lahore in Pakistan. He grew up in Doncaster, England and earned a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southampton. He later went on to successful C-suite careers at Computervision and NAVTEQ in the US. But it was in December 2009 while watching Victor Hugo's Les Miserable's – a story about a hero on the right side of human decency but the wrong side of the law – that Khan was inspired to write about the mutual misunderstanding in which mainstream Islam and modern Western culture seem to be locked. It is his first novel of any kind but has already garnered high praise, having taken away top honors as the best book among both fiction and non-fiction categories in the 2010 Los Angeles Book Festival Award. Khan has given several TV, radio and print media interviews, including on NBC and Canada's CTV, Mancow Muller's Mancow in the Morning program as an in-studio guest and Boston-based Dan Rae's program Nightstand which airs on WBZ 1030AM radio, as well as many others. He has been married to his wife for 37 years, and they live north of Chicago. In hardcover and paperback, Sikander is available at selected Barnes & Noble stores, at Amazon.com, and several other popular websites. As an ebook, Sikander can be downloaded on the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony eReader, and Apple's popular iBook application for the iPad and iPhone platform. The book can also be ordered directly from its own website, http://www.sikanderbook.com where Khan's many topical articles and numerous independent reviews of the book can also be read. Media Contact: For a review copy of Sikander or to arrange an interview with Salahuddin Khan, contact book publicist Scott Lorenz of Westwind Communications Book Marketing at scottlorenz@westwindcos.com or by phone at 734-667-2090 http://www.book-marketing-expert.com Scott Lorenz
President
Westwind Communications Book Marketing
Plymouth, MI
734-667-2090
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