Tariq Ali

He’s a member of the editorial committee of Sin Permiso and the New Left Review, and contributes to CounterPunch, The Guardian, and the London Review of Books. Tariq was born October 21, 1943 in Lahore, Punjab, where he grew up. He is the son of Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan (an activist) and Mazhar Ali Khan (a journalist).

The best place to start is the Writers & Readers Documentary Comic series, the earliest of Tariq Ali's multi-book series: it opens with Marx For Beginners (1976) and runs to 21 books across 1976–2021, ending with The Black Holocaust for Beginners (2021). Tariq Ali's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

Tariq Ali has 89 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1967 and 2026. 26 of them belong to 2 named series — the largest being the Writers & Readers Documentary Comic series with 21 books — and 63 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Tariq Ali's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Writers & Readers Documentary Comic (1976–2021, 21 books) and Islam Quintet (1992–2010, 5 books).

This guide splits Tariq Ali's 89 books into 2 named series and 63 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Writers & Readers Documentary Comic (21 books, 1976–2021); Islam Quintet (5 books, 1992–2010).