From Karachi to Iceland: Crime and culture meet at SIBF 2025

Sharjah, November 11, 2025

What connects the quiet Nordic town of Akranes to the bustling streets of Karachi? At the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2025), two acclaimed crime authors offered the answer: ‘culture’.

During a Thrillerfest session, Omar Shahid Hamid, Pakistan’s counter-terrorism officer-turned-novelist, and Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, Iceland’s award-winning crime writer, discussed how real-life experience, psychology, and place shape the universal language of crime fiction.

For Omar Shahid Hamid, storytelling was a natural extension of his years in law enforcement. “As a police officer, we often talk about stories – some so fascinating that only cops share them,” he said. “Most police officers don’t write, but I did, eventually compiling these stories over endless cups of tea in Karachi. Stories that even the media didn’t know. I started putting my thoughts down, and that became the manuscript for The Prisoner.”

Written during a sabbatical from the Karachi Police, The Prisoner (2013) became a bestseller in both India and Pakistan and was long-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. The novel is currently under development for a film adaptation.

Hamid’s later works, The Spinner’s Tale (2015), The Party Worker (2017), The Fix (2019), and Betrayal (2021), blend political insight with gritty realism, earning him the Karachi Literature Festival Fiction Prize twice. The Party Worker was previously reported to be under option for a potential Netflix adaptation.

Reflecting on his writing process, Hamid said that ideas often start with what he reads or sees. “Newspapers and TV headlines trigger an idea,” he explained. “I write a skeletal sketch that changes over time, but it helps to have a roadmap as you keep writing.”

Writing, he added, became a cathartic outlet after years of high-pressure service in counter-terrorism.

Across the stage, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir traced her fascination with human behaviour back to her childhood in Akranes, a coastal town of 5,000 people. “I grew up where everyone knew everyone,” she said. “There was gossip, rumours – and I spent a lot of time in local libraries, reading and absorbing local history and stories.”

Her early curiosity about society led her to study sociology and criminology, grounding her work in the psychology of ordinary people. Her debut novel, The Creak on the Stairs (2018), became a No. 1 bestseller in Iceland, winning both the Icelandic Blackbird Award and the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in 2021.

Her Forbidden Iceland series, including Girls Who Lie and Night Shadows, has been translated into more than 20 languages and made her one of the defining voices of modern Nordic noir. “In Iceland, where crime is rare, people couldn’t believe we could write crime fiction,” she said. “But I’ve always been interested in why people commit crimes, what drives them to do it.”

Now read widely across Europe, particularly in France and Germany, Ægisdóttir added: “My stories have travelled more than I have. Being a writer is lonely work, but when you come to festivals like this and meet readers, it feels rewarding.”

As the discussion drew to a close, both authors agreed that while thrillers differ in tone and geography, their emotional core remains universal. “Because we don’t write about organised crime, our storytelling always revolves around the moral questions a family member committing the crime may face,” said Ægisdóttir. “It’s about people – their fears, their emotions, and whether justice was truly served at the end.”

Their dialogue at SIBF 2025 – bridging Karachi’s chaotic intensity and Iceland’s quiet isolation – captured how contemporary crime fiction uses place, psychology, and moral conflict to explore the shared human search for truth and justice.

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