Scorpion
About
Scorpion A novel by Aslam Khatri coming
Fall 2026
Ali Khan arrives in Toronto from Dhaka with nothing but ambition and a willingness to work harder than anyone around him. What he finds is Benjamin Klein — brilliant, charismatic, and constitutionally incapable of not destroying the things he builds.
Over a decade, Ali gives everything to Benjamin's vision. He helps build a public company. He watches it grow into something real. He watches Benjamin dismantle it anyway.
Scorpion is the story of that decade — told in Ali's voice, looking back from the distance that only endings make possible. It is a novel about loyalty and what it actually costs. About the immigrant experience and what it demands. About a marriage held together by a woman who packed a bag every third Sunday and waited at the corner near the office for her husband to come home.
The scorpion of the title comes from a fable Benjamin tells on a transatlantic flight. A scorpion stings the hippopotamus carrying him across the river. When asked why, the scorpion says:
But this is my nature.
It is the key to understanding the man at the center of this story. And perhaps to understanding