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I couldn’t shake the fear that had gripped me after the encounter with the Khapasa. Heart pounding and breath quickening I recalled how close I had come to losing everything. In this unfamiliar place, I needed to find my way back to the Karakoram Highway and uncover the secrets of the ancient silk route.

So starts the second chapter of Marni Khan and the Ancient Silk Route, a young adult fantasy novel by Saniya Chughtai — the first, the author told us, of five books in The Rise of the Energy Warriors series.

Chughtai explained that the titular character is a young girl who starts her treacherous journey on the Silk Route when she discovers a letter her mother left behind in a sundook (trunk) along with silk cloth in it. What follows is a quest to unravel the mystery as Marni meets local mythical creatures.

“This book has Pakistan ki mitti ki khushboo [the scent of Pakistan’s soil]. It’s for everyone who wants to discover or re-discover Pakistan,” Chughtai said.

And she’s right — the novel is set entirely in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is rich with the landscapes, folklore, and mythology of the province. Scattered throughout its pages are illustrations and text boxes that introduce readers to various cultural elements, places, and creatures of Pakistan. For instance, the second page explains the art of truck decoration, accompanied by an illustration, right after Marni Khan tumbles out of a “colourful” truck.

Chughtai’s introduction of Pakistani folklore and mythology to young readers is unprecedented. Readers are generally exposed to Greek myths, through the likes of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series or other Western fairytales. Perhaps Southeast Asian mythological creatures in books such as The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh are the closest thing young Pakistani readers had to relate to. However, Chughtai’s book offers a first — adventure firmly rooted in the tales of Pakistan.

This is something the author is keenly aware of. “My readers were growing up and I asked them what they were reading, and they said Harry Potter but also Percy Jackson and Keepers of the Lost City. So I picked up those books and started reading them, and thought it would be really nice for our Pakistani kids to have fictional superheroes from our part of the world.

“That’s why I started writing this book and I knew that it had to be from Pakistan and launched in Pakistan.”

Chughtai wanted young Pakistani readers to own the book, to “feel a sense of pride that this book has come from Pakistan, to rediscover their land through Marni’s eyes and to find a self-identity which is so strong that they’ll be able to talk about this to anybody who doesn’t know about Pakistan.”

Despite living in Ireland for a large part of her life, Chughtai emphasised that this book “bleeds green”. The irony of one of Ireland’s colours being green wasn’t lost on the author and she believes that she blended between the two countries, however, this series is “purely Pakistani”.

As Marni embarks on her journey, young readers of Pakistani heritage will discover their ancestral land alongside her — for instance, learning that a khapasa is a night hag. Through her adventures, the book seamlessly weaves in cultural knowledge, making folklore accessible to readers of all ages while simultaneously serving as a great introduction to those unfamiliar with Pakistan.

Another reason for her to write this series was to break away from the Western “agenda” she believes is perpetuated in young adult fantasy, giving parents more options where they didn’t have to censor things. “It’s about self-development and understanding your country,” she added.

Her own children’s journey fuelled her drive to create this universe. Chughtai told Images that her daughter, born and raised in Ireland, went through a lot of anxiety when their family relocated to the Middle East, which was something the author couldn’t understand.

“I found in Pakistan we grew up with very strong community DNA, and sitting with grandparents [because of which] 80 per cent of the tension was gone. So I don’t remember anxiety being there. Now, the world has shrunk, but because of that the community structure has also broken. Therefore emotional intelligence and stability is very, very key for everybody, and I find that structure breaking down in this part of the world and outside is what kids who have migrated and it’s very, very fundamental to be able to understand what emotional intelligence is.”

Emotional intelligence has always been important for Chughtai, whose previous books show characters going through a lot of turmoil but eventually finding solutions to heal themselves, and with her newest work she hopes young audiences can discover who they are and what their powers are. “I hope they can identify the conflict within themselves. If you have to face any adversity, whether it’s in your school environment or in the family, you’re on an adventure journey like Marni.”

Marni’s character also undergoes a journey of self-discovery as she’s suddenly brought to an ancient, mythical world and realises she has superpowers. This journey of self-discovery was one Chughtai took with her character. “I realised the complexity of what a teenager goes through when it comes to emotions [and] in just developing her, I discovered a lot of my emotional self.”

The process of writing this fantasy series didn’t just open up Chughtai’s emotional self — it also helped her discover more about Pakistan’s landscape and mythical creatures. “I didn’t realise we had water dragons up in Chitral, I didn’t realise we had night hags and shirrar, which are black creatures who feed on your fears and desires, and there’s many, many more. We don’t have just churails [witches] but fairies that are evil and pixies.

“Also the landscape! So, the sacred rocks of Hunza, I don’t know how many people, even in Pakistan, know of the sacred rocks of Hunza. Do you know that we have yak polo? Do you know that we have the Shandur festival, which happens only once a year? It happens on the highest polo grounds in the world. So, that was my discovery.”

It was fascinating to learn how the author thoroughly researched Pakistan’s mythology and landscape, ensuring that young readers gain insights into these aspects of the country — something rarely explored in children’s literature before.

Chughtai also works as an entrepreneur and interior architect, and her creative side definitely influenced the production of this book. Marni and the Ancient Silk Route’s story revolves around a dhal (shield), and the metal bookmark which was part of the book’s box set had an embossed shield atop it.

“The dhal has four pieces, each character has their own icon. So if you look at Marni’s book it has her symbol.” And indeed the spine of the book is adorned with a swirling heart, representing her pulse power.

Chughtai told Images that the other characters with their unique powers would have their own icons to denote them and the four pieces would come together to form the dhal, enabling the characters to fight the greatest creature in the final book of the saga.

The intricacies in the book’s design were all Chughtai’s doing. “There are a lot of things within the book that you will not find in a conventional Percy Jackson or even Harry Potter. It’s that genre but so much more as well. The quality, whether it’s the bookmark or the book itself or the paper, the words and the actual content, had to be world-class, if not beyond that.

“This book will become a global hit but it will always be known that it was a best-seller in Pakistan and then it went global rather than the other way round. So, it’s almost anti-colonist, and we’re saying the heartbeat starts from our soil and then goes abroad.”

Chughtai’s desire for the book to be a Pakistani best-seller was why it was launched at this year’s Karachi Literature Festival despite her having the option to launch it abroad. The decision wasn’t without pushback, with many advising her to launch it abroad for more viewership. “But I said, even if one person reads it, this book has to launch in Pakistan because this belongs to the soil of Pakistan. So, the entire series will be launched over here. All five of them.”