The Concubine & the Slave Catcher - Stories from around the world

QAISRA SHAHRAZ

Category: Anthology

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ABOUT THE CONCUBINE & THE SLAVE CATCHER

ABOUT QAISRA SHAHRAZ

Ranging widely across both historical periods and national boundaries, Qaisra Shahraz’s new collection of short stories speaks powerfully to the burning ethical issues of the twenty-first century.

Ten powerful stories set on several continents and at different periods in history. A well-meaning Abolitionist learns the sordid and violent truth about slavery from her African servants in Boston USA. The sundering of India and Pakistan in the 1947 Partition is revealed when a Muslim boy is adopted by a Hindu family during the chaos of mass migration. A young university student finds her engagement broken off because her fiancé’s family disapproves of her Western attire. The horrors of the Holocaust are writ large in one pregnant woman’s experiences. With each unique story, Shahraz captures and enriches us with her wisdom and storytelling magic.

Qaisra Shahraz is a British-Pakistani award-winning and critically acclaimed novelist and scriptwriter. She is winner of the prestigious UK National Diversity Lifetime Achiever Award for Services to Literature, Education, Gender and Interfaith Activism. Shahraz was recognised as one of 100 influential Pakistani women in the ‘Pakistan Power 100 List’. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an advisor to and former Director of Asia Pacific Writers and Translators partnership. Her novels The Holy Woman, Typhoon, and Revolt as well as short story A Pair of Jeans are translated into several languages and studied in universities and schools. Shahraz is a gender and peace activist. She devotes a lot of her time and energies to building cultural bridges and promoting messages of tolerance and community cohesion in the UK and abroad through her literary tours.

REVIEWS

'Like Buchi Emecheta, Shahraz is passionate about the lives and plight of women and migrants. Like Elif Shafak, she is effortlessly cosmopolitan and has a sharp ear for the voices of the street. Read this sparkling collection if you are interested in migration, in intergenerational tensions.

Claire Chambers, University of York, UK

These tautly paced, cross-cultural and all too human stories are told with deep empathy
Namita Gokale, Author and Founder-Director Jaipur Literature Festival

A delightful collection provoking laughter and melancholia
Mei Fong, author of One Child

Travelling through places and times, but more importantly, through people's lives - that's what makes these wonderful stories with their mix of sadness, longing, and nostalgia so memorable
Eka Kurniawan, author of Man Tiger

A very bold and hard-hitting collection, truly memorable!

Lynne Pearce, Lancaster University, UK

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