Muslim Writers Awards Magazine 2011

Asalaam Alaikum

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CONTENT 03 Globe Education and the Muslim Writers Awards: Exploring Shakespeare and Islam with Globe Education Jamie Arden 08 Penguin Books Chantal Noel and Mike Symons 10 So you Want to be a Journalist, eh?

10 (not so) easy steps John Mair 11 Tea in Samovar Sitara Khan 14 Muslim Writers, Muslim Readers Sumayya Lee 17 The Universal Language of Fiction Jonathan Ruppin 19 See Red Mina Muhammad 22 Red. White. Purple Haze Mark Gonzales 23 In Search of a Common Word Catherine Pellegrino 24 Across the Window Sill Shadab Zeest Hasmi

27 The Journey Bina Shah 31 Seeking to Sip Some Simplictea: A Picnic of Poems in Allah’s Green Garden Dawud Wharnsby 33 Stings, Public Interest and Investigative Journalism David Hayward 36 Puffin Books Shannon Park 37 Drawing Together Divided Selves Sameer Rahim 38 2011 Shortlist 39 2011 Judges

To write any piece for a particular audience takes talent, courage and determination and this is what we stand for through the Muslim Writers Awards. Over these last few years we’ve seen the landscape for writers change considerably for the better, and whilst the first five years have slipped by quickly enough, the successes remain with us to build upon.

49 A Librarian’s Perspective Kate Lister

On behalf of myself and the Trustees of Muslim Hands, I offer my heartfelt appreciation to all the entrants and wish our shortlisted guests the very best on the big night.

50 Walking the Talk Asad Ahmad

Jazak’Allah Khairun

47 From an Imaginary Notebook Aamer Hussein

51 Messages of Support 57 Performers

25 The Goal Keeper Charlie Jordan www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

Lakhte Hassanain Chairman Muslim Hands International

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Designed by Sabrina Sardar

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One thing we’ve learned as an International NGO is that communicating the needs of the communities we serve is such a key part of our work. Sharing the stories of the people we support and the calamities they endure without stripping them of their dignity is not an easy thing to do.

globe education and the muslim writers awards Exploring Shakespeare and Islam with Globe Education

Shakepeare’s Globe is illuminated with images from the Muslim world as part of the Islam Awareness Week on 22 November 2004. Photograph by Peter Sanders.

The first word revealed of the Quran was “Iqra” …meaning to READ…seek knowledge…educate yourselves…be educated.

Globe Education is the education arm of the reconstructed Globe Theatre on Bankside in the London borough of Southwark and holds the educational equity of Shakespeare’s Globe as an organsiation. Globe Education works with over 100,000 people every year in a range of school workshops and programmes, teacher training, post graduate and undergraduate courses, community and outreach programmes, digital projects as well as public lectures, Theatre performances and staged readings.

Globe Education aims to introduce people of all ages to the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and to explore how the theatre architecture of the Globe influenced the writing of plays and the relationship between actors and audiences.

onto the Globe stage can see over 1,400 people gathering around them, standing and sitting. This creates a charged atmosphere and a sense of a shared community in the theatre.

Globe Education believes that this sense of a “shared community” is at the heart of the work it explores. People participating actively in our programmes should feel confident in communicating and collaborating with anybody, regardless of their faith, beliefs, culture or background.

Using a range of active learning techniques and shared activities in its methods, participants are encouraged to work in the true nature of an “Ensemble”, encouraging participants to understand subconsciously how we as a human race can work collectively, cohesively and collaboratively, towards a “shared” goal.

This shared sense of community allows us to understand ourselves in a deeper way.

The Globe is an outdoor theatre in the round. Actors walking 03

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Shakespeare has always had the ability through his dramatic works and the voices echoed in his characters, to shine a light on the human condition and human existence, allowing this insight and understanding of ourselves and others to take place.

“To be or not to be…that is the question:”

“What is common about the peoples of the world is a common culture, whether of language, history or religion; certainly in music, painting, sculpture, drama, common elements are expressed. The genius of great literary figures (among which Shakespeare must stand very high, if not pre-eminent) consists in their ability to express the human condition in a form recognisable to all people”.

Hamlet (Act III, Scene I) The fact that Shakespeare has been translated into a kaleidoscope of different languages and has been welcomed into the hearts of many cultures and communities across the world, has firmly placed Shakespeare as a global playwright, with the ability to speak in a multitude of tongues. William Shakespeare’s relevance, insights and immediacy contained in the voices of his characters tucked within the fabric of his plays, pricks the consciousness of writers across the world, his words playing an integral part of the literary development of writers and dramatists across the Globe. Shakespeare has most certainly been embraced by all four corners of the planet.

Sam Wanamaker, the founding father of Shakespeare’s Globe said in an interview in 1986:

Sam Wanamaker (interview with Professor Graham Holderness, 1986) Shakespeare Thou Art Translated - “It is the East…”

Every spring, summer and autumn, Globe Education chooses a particular theme for a series of public events and programmes. Looking ahead to 2012 (the Olympic year) Globe Education will be exploring the intercultural connections that have been fused together through the works of William Shakespeare.

As part of the spring 2012 season of programming, shining a light on this Shakespearean Diaspora in the forthcoming Shakespeare Thou Art Translated season, Globe Education will be focusing on the writings of Shakespeare in its relationship to the Eastern world.

Dr Martin Lings at Shakespeare’s Globe as part of Islam Awareness Week (24/11/04) Photograph by Peter Sanders

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Shakespeare’s Globe

Holding a trilogy of large platform debates (Globe Gatherings) entitled “It is the East…” (a reference to Romeo Montague’s famous balcony scene speech in Romeo and Juliet), Globe Education will focus on the influence of Shakespeare in the Eastern parts of the Globe and how these geographical areas have embraced Shakespeare within its myriad of theatrical landscapes, traditions and translations.

The trilogy includes: • It is the East…Shakespeare and Eastern Europe • It is the East…Shakespeare and the Far East • It is the East…Shakespeare and the Middle East This Shakespeare Thou Art Translated Intercultural season will support Shakespeare’s Globe in its hosting of the international Globe to Globe Festival, staging all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays, in 37 different languages in 6 weeks - this festival is the Globe’s contribution to the Olympic celebrations being held next year http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/public/ globe-to-globe/ This festival is Shakespeare’s Globe’s cultural offer to the Olympics, forming a key part of the World Shakespeare Festival in 2012 http://www.worldshakespearefestival.org.uk/.

Shakespeare and Islam Our embrace of the “intercultural” is always ever-present in our work, both with the creative offer on stage and the audience we welcome into the Globe every year, through our plays, projects and programmes.

In 2004 this was magnified when Globe Education embarked on a highly successful season entitled Shakespeare and Islam.

eve of a battle against an army of Moors. He has thus become known as Sant Iago Matamoros (St James the Moorslayer), but those familiar with the play would know that Shakespeare’s Iago is far from saintly.

Back in 2004, it was a conversation between Patrick Spottiswoode (Director, Globe Education) and with His Excellency Mohammed Belmahi, the then Moroccan Ambassador who encouraged us to explore England’s relationship not only with Morocco but also with other Islamic lands at the time of Shakespeare, that led to the programming of Shakespeare and Islam. The Ambassador believed that Othello would have been Moroccan and indeed Queen Elizabeth I was involved in treaty negotiations with Morocco to combine forces against the Spanish. Both Elizabeth and the Moroccan sultan Al-Mansour, died in 1603.

2004 was also a fascinating time to mount a large scale season entitled Shakespeare and Islam, due to the current attitudes and understanding of Islam in Britain, as well as the growing insidious undercurrent of Islamophobia post 9/11 (and the year prior to the 2005 London bombings). Globe Education therefore met with representatives of the Muslim Council of Britain to discuss ways in which the season might also help to build bridges and understanding between the diverse London communities.

Shakespeare and Islam allowed Globe Education to explore the complex web of diplomatic, trade and cultural negotiations between England and Islamic lands and allowed the Globe to stage readings of some plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries in which Muslims are presented.

These included:

The idea for a season on Shakespeare and Islam may at first have seemed quite surprising. Indeed at the time many questioned the link, motivation and reasoning behind staging such an event. Globe Education has chosen a variety of interesting themes over the years including the current Autumn season ‘Shakespeare and the Banquet of the Senses’ the recent summer season ‘The Heard Word: Pulpit Vs Playhouse’ and past seasons ‘Shakespeare and Spain’, `Shakespeare is German’, ‘Shakespeare and the Lawyers’ and one of my favourites `Shakespeare and Shoes’.

The original idea for staging Shakespeare and Islam was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s Othello in 2004. In Shakespeare’s play Othello is a Moor living in Venice, trying to absorb into a Catholic society.

Shakespeare does not allude directly to Othello’s faith directly, it is probable that he was born a Muslim but had to convert to Catholicism.

The villain of the play who ends up destroying Othello is called Iago. Sant Iago is the patron saint of Catholic Spain. Sant Iago is said to have appeared in a vision to the Spanish army on the

• The English Moor (written in 1637 by Richard Brome) • The Emperor of the East (written in 1631 by Philip Massinger) • Lust’s Dominion (Written in 1599 by Thomas Dekker in collaboration with others)

Lectures from distinguished scholars also provided a variety of insights and perspectives. Professor Matar gave a lecture on the Elizabethan Stage Moor while Professor Haleem gave an introduction to The Qur’an and its aural beauty as well as an overview of Shakespeare in Arabic.

The Princes School of Traditional Arts and Khayaal Theatre Company were our creative partners in the Shakespeare and Islam season and created art work, installations and a souk to celebrate crafts, foods, tales and anecdotes from the Muslim world.

Children from local Southwark schools also presented a production of Othello on the Globe stage with visits to the East London Mosque and St George’s Cathedral as part of their research. Primary schools from Tower Hamlets and

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Westminster created handkerchief designs following a visit to the Art from Islamic Lands exhibition at Somerset House.

A handkerchief spotted with strawberries was the gift Othello gave to his wife Desdemona and the children designed their own love token embroidered handkerchiefs. These handkerchiefs were stitched together to form a Yurt called the Tent of Peace, that is used as a storytelling tent, a place for people to congregate.

Globe Education and the Muslim Writers Awards

Looking forward Globe Education plan to collaborate with MWA encouraging young Muslim “dramatic” writers and playwrights especially to embrace the written word, articulate their thoughts and ideas, express their feelings and open up their imaginations.

Globe Education looks forward to building on the work started and relationships made back in 2004 with the Shakespeare and Islam season and nurture a continued collaboration and dialogue with organisations and individuals who represent and work with peoples of Islamic faith.

As with William Shakespeare, Globe Education hope that these creative processes will not only unlock the potential of young dramatic playwrights but also give birth to a treasure trove of gifts in the form of new plays and new dramatic writing specifically for the Globe Stage. Plays to read out load, pick up, perform, absorb and understand…in short embrace these new works with the true sense of “Iqra”.

Globe Education is delighted to support the Muslim Writers Awards 2011 and host the MWA Awards Ceremony in 2011 at Shakespeare’s Globe.

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

Globe Education’s journey with the Muslim Writers Awards and their charity partner Muslim Hands begins with the MWA Awards Ceremony in 2011.

Twelfth Night (Act II, Scene V)

Article written by Jamie Arden, Head of Operations and Events, Globe Education.

www.shakespearesglobe.com

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PENGUIN BOOKS

Here at Penguin, we might think we’ve always embraced the unknown and the unfamiliar. After all, that’s the kind of business we’re in - discovering new voices - and our days (and nights) are filled with unpublished manuscripts.

But it was only recently that we began to see that in sifting through those manuscripts that reached us, and in looking out for the very best of them, we were only scratching the surface.

To put it another way, published writing was the tip of an iceberg which was but the tip of another bigger iceberg of manuscripts - those that never actually crossed our desks.

So things had become a little unsettling for us. And there was no turning back. We knew we needed to look further afield - not just in terms of geography, but in terms of outlook and culture - and we needed to change our focus. So when the Muslim Writers Awards stepped into our lives a few years ago, inviting us to become involved in the judging of both the Unpublished Novel Award and the Unpublished Children’s Story Award, we were delighted to welcome them in. It had been all very well adopting the principles of ‘diversity’ as a kind of guiding light, but we needed someone, something, some process, to help us make the change.

The first judging sessions, back in 2009, were just what we needed. We invited some of our more enlightened authors and colleagues from the industry to join us, pored over the submissions that had flooded in, and then took a break out of our busy schedule of discussing marketing plans, book jackets and sales figures to share our views. We talked about what made a good story, about what was important in fiction, and about what these narratives could tell us about ourselves. And out of those judging sessions two voices emerged that we couldn’t ignore: Suhel Ahmed who had engaged us all with his novel about a mother and her son, Broken Paths; and Reba Khatun who delighted us with her children’s story, ‘The Mysterious Neighbour’.

In Suhel we had found the winner of the Unpublished Novel Award, and in Reba the winner of the Unpublished Children’s Story Award.

The awards ceremony was yet another stage in our education. We were not much more than a mile away from the Penguin offices, but here was an inspirational celebration of talent unlike any we’d previously witnessed: performance artists and musicians, as well as a whole host of budding and accomplished novelists, poets and short-story writers, as impressive and lively in the flesh as they were on paper.

It was a striking display of creativity on the one hand and healthy appreciation on the other, and we were conscious of being at the heart of a thriving artistic community. What’s more, here was the sort of talent www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

that we felt had been eluding us until now - and which, thanks to the Muslim Writers Awards, we were now in a position to tap into.

And if our attendance at the ceremony along with our Penguin guests made the world of publishing seem slightly closer and more welcoming to those who were edging their way towards publication, then perhaps we had done some good. Maybe those we met that evening will have enjoyed their brush with this little corner of the publishing industry, and maybe we’ll have encouraged a few more writers to dream seriously of publication.

It was an eye-opening event for us and, I’m sure, for our winning writers, but of course the work had to go on well after the party was over. We knew that the sort of change we were talking about couldn’t happen overnight and, revitalised, we went away to continue in our efforts to publish differently. Our winners, meanwhile, were given the tools to go away and capitalise on their talents: each was given a two-hour mentoring session by a respected and established author (Bernardine Evaristo in the case of Suhel Ahmed, and Louisa Young in the case of Reba Khatun), and each was given the chance to attend a writing course run by the Arvon Foundation.

Two years have gone by since then, and the work continues. And, as I write this, the judging process for this year’s awards is well underway, and once again the judges - both those from inside Penguin and those from the wider publishing world whom we’ve invited to join us - are finding the experience an unexpectedly refreshing 08

one. So at the 2011 Awards Ceremony we will be introducing you to more good fiction and more winning writers who deserve every ounce of praise and every helping hand we can give them. Like their predecessors, they will benefit from mentoring sessions (this time given by Kavita Bhanot and Sufiya Ahmed) as well as courses run by the Arvon Foundation, and we trust that, like their predecessors,

they will go away with the confidence to develop as writers and build on their success.

Of course we’re not the only publisher to have been influenced and inspired by the Muslim Writers Awards, and we’re in good company as we take steps towards a properly diverse future.

So mainstream British publishing is

looking very different to just a few years ago. More of us are looking beyond the familiar, reading in new ways, and seeing what we might otherwise have missed. It’s only a start, and we all have a long way to go, but at least we now understand a little more of the world that is out there, right on our doorstep.

Mike Symons has been with Penguin for over 12 years. In April 2007 he became Group Sales Director and is responsible for the teams that sell into the UK and Export markets, as well a to Penguin companies overseas. Mike works across all the Penguin lists from Ladybird through to commercial fiction.

Chantal Noel has been Rights Director for Penguin UK since 2008. She currently heads up the UK and international licensing teams for the adult trade divisions and Puffin and has broad experience of helping to establish new authors in international markets and growing premier author brands on a global scale.

Mike and Chantal jointly Chair the Penguin Diversity Committee.

@PenguinUKBooks

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SO YOU WANT TO BE A JOURNALIST, EH? 10 (NOT SO) EASY STEPS JOHN MAIR

Journalism; It’s glamorous, it’s sexy but it is bloody hard work and years of slog. It is also a declining trade and one in which every old dog has to consistently learn new tricks to survive. You face the future each and every day. But, what qualities do you need to make it in journalism?

FIRSTLY, and it seems obvious but you need to be able to write good clear precise and factual English. You would be amazed at how many practising journalists cannot or will not do that.

They are saved daily by the skill and experience of sub-editors and editors.

The best way to become a good writer is to read, especially those whose work you respect and to practice, practice, practice. Create your own blog. Write for it daily. Make your mistakes in the privacy of that cyberspace. Which leads to point two.

SECONDLY, portfolio, portfolio, portfolio. Nobody will give you a job or even a university place on your promise of being able to perform. Show you can do it through school and university newspapers, hospital and local radio, whatever platforms and outlets you can find.

THIRDLY, curiousity killed the cat and makes good journalists. If you are always asking ‘Why’ and other questions then you will make a good

‘hack’ (as we refer to ourselves). Wake up in the morning and think ‘Wassup in the world today, why and how has it happened?’. Without that curiousity, you will very quickly get bored and lazy.

Both of those are not desirable hacking qualities.

FOURTHLY, persistence. You will spend a career of doors being slammed in your face in reality or virtually and people saying ‘No’ to you. They don’t like journalists and they don’t like talking to them, especially if it is not in their interests. Always be polite but almost always go back and ask a second and a third time if need be. It is much harder to say ‘Yes’ than ‘No’.

Persistence also pays if you have a sniff of something and pursue it like a dog with a bone. Look at Woodward/ Bernstein and Watergate, look at Nick Davies of ‘The Guardian’ and phone-hacking. Persistence paid in spades.

FIFTHLY, accuracy. Make good notes or have a brilliant memory. You may need them if the subject of your piece disputes what you said or worse takes you to court for libel.

SIXTH, have a sense of mischief. The best and greatest journalists have this as a core quality. Your job is not public relations - indeed it is anti public relations. Do not be afraid of

upsetting people if you are right and have the sword of truth in your armoury.

But think of the face of the villain when he reads your expose of them. Priceless.

SEVENTH, consume much media. Much of journalism is looking and learning from masters. If you do not read a daily paper (on whatever platform), listen to radio news and features and watch television news and features then why do you want to be a hack. An uninformed journalist is not really much use to anyone.

EIGHTH, increasingly, teach yourself to be computer literate. The future of journalism is on a variety of screens.

Being able to tweet, blog, create websites, shoot and manipulate text and images are now vital to any journalism job. Those with the keyboard and programming skills will rule the world.

NINTH, learn to sell-your ideas, your stories, yourself. It is cold and competitive out there. The fittest do survive. Look at Josh Halliday at ‘The Guardian’-one year out of university and he is a star writer. He knows and promotes the Halliday brand.

TENTH, get some luck. You need it to get in and you need it to get ahead.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University.

He invented and produces the Coventry Conversations there (www.coventry.ac.uk/coventryconversations) inter alia. He is the editor of five recent books on major journalism themes. The latest Investigative Journalism; Dead or Alive is published by Abramis academic in September.

He is an award winning former BBC, Channel Four and ITV producer.

@johnmair100 j.mair@coventry.ac.uk

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TEA IN SAMOVAR sitara khan

‘My great grandfather brought it back from Srinagar along with his wife, Princes Suryia, the one he fell in love with,’ Raja Talib said, noticing my attraction to the silver samovar decorated with a pair of incised birds of paradise.

‘Her porcelain skin and pink Kashmiri tea are still a legend in our family, and her style... she was involved in all aspects of life,’ he said, moving towards the Rani’s portrait in her sovereign head-dress covering her forehead, over the ornate hat, which hung beside the glass-framed family tree scribed on papyrus, practically claiming the wall.

‘It’s quite unusual...’

‘Quite. But then everything about this place is unusual. Its design: the stained glass windows with big bays, lace-like wooden edgings, inside and out; even this room - its pentagonal shape.’

‘Is the cherry orchard his design as well?’

‘His idea, certainly... apricots, peaches, pomegranates, apples, pears, others; the whole place is surrounded by orchards.

‘It’s more a hymn to the arts than a fortress, isn’t it?’

‘Just as he wanted it! He was something of an artist himself; wrote poetry and sketched. We still have some of his works,’ he said, reaching for an old leather-bound volume from one of the floor-to-ceiling glass fronted, sheesham book cases, lining the west wall.

‘Architects had to translate the picture in his head onto paper. There were a lot of rejected plans in the process.

Transporting building materials and craftsmen here focussed his mind, as you can imagine, given the terrain. Not 11

much is left of the fortress part: the wall’s gone and the watch tower.’

Ghulmit sits precisely at the point on which the Quaraqurrum, the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush peaks nudge and wink at each other as they watch the traders and conquerors pass through their well-trodden and ever hidden pathways. Some thousand years ago, they saw Raja Talib’s ancestors on their horses trekking back from Iran, following in Alexander the Great’s steps and those of the Arians before him. To bestow their perceived gifts of truth and civilisation for the local peoples, they divided the land they conquered between different branches of their family: Hunza, Gilgit, Yassin, Naggar, all with separate forts.

‘Was your great grandfather a devout Muslim?’

‘Well, you see, there’s no attached mosque here, which is interesting.

I think he was pretty relaxed about religion, rather like people nowadays in our so-called Northern Areas. Sunnis, Shias, Smielies intermarry. They sing, dance, fish: trout mainly - the British introduced it - it gobbles up most of the local species; they pray Namaz and they hunt.’

‘You mean they... you still hunt?’

‘Absolutely! My uncle has a museum in the other room of his rarest trophies. My aunt fires the best shots. Right through the left shoulder! Mountain goats; Ibex; then the men move in.’

Still reeling from the shock he had just fired at my Western sensibilities, the Raja proceeded to the other side of the reception room.

just to greet me. Back to back with her husband, the wife craned her neck to see me, before returning to keeping a watch on the mountains as she’d done for a millennium. Oblivious of this little exchange, the Raja continued.

‘A peasant found it whilst ploughing his field in Bubher, in the Gizzer District, about a hundred kilometres from Gilgit.

He was going to demolish it for its stone to build a wall or something. When my grandfather, who was the District Commissioner at the time, heard about it, he bought it from him. I believe he paid five hundred rupees which was a lot of money in those days.’

‘How did he know it was worth the investment, as it were and how did it get there?’

‘Being interested in history he knew it was an ancient treasure, but to make sure he had it researched. It’s believed to be about a thousand years old – how it got there? It’s speculated that it was washed down by the floods some hundred and fifty years previously, from a temple in Ishoman.

‘And you have this priceless treasure sitting right here, in your home. Don’t you think it should go to the Museum?’

I asked.

‘In a way it should, but I think it’s safer here. If the Ministry of Antiquity knew about it they would most likely take it to Texala. You can’t always trust them.

Things go missing sometimes. Lot of treasures from Mohenjo-Daro’ve been looted, I know.’

‘Don’t people mind that you have this Buddhist monument in your house?’

‘You see this Buddha!’

I felt as though this life-size Buddha with his wife and two children frozen in stone for a thousand years came alive www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

‘People are funny, you know. Full of surprises.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘All sorts of things. For example on Imam Hussain’s birthday, the whole of the valley and mountains are lit up. It’s like fairyland; quite magical, but is that Islamic? I’m not sure.

‘Again, on your drive to Gilgit you’ll see huge carved Buddha high up the mountains with nails around it.’

‘Nails around it?’

‘Yes. There were stories...’

‘Stories? What kind of stories?’

‘About the Buddha roaming the streets at night. Children would awaken with nightmares. Then an Imam had an idea of nailing it. ‘ ‘Nailing it? How can you nail a carving?’

Before I was able to process the witness of my eyes, he said, ‘It led to the river.’

‘You mean the river down below?’

‘Yes, it would be about a mile or so. We had it closed when we ceased to rule in Bhutto’s time.’

Through an open courtyard we ascended another staircase to the upper storey. Overlooking the fruit-laden orchards on all sides, the sweeping bay balcony jutted out over the integrated cushioned seats from a large hexagonal room.

‘This was the ladies’ preserve. From here they would watch musicians, dancers, sword artists perform their art. On starlit nights they would drink tea and tell stories of Myalgus.’

‘Myalgus?’

‘Precisely. But people were placated when the priest said a prayer whilst he hammered in the nails.’

Mind still on the nailed Buddha up on the Hindu Kush beside torrents of pearly white waters, I noticed a whole wall of pictures. Men in ceremonial robes: indigenous and European.

‘That’s my great-grandfather shaking hands with Lord Cousins. Jammu, Kashmir, this area: he represented the North. That’s his sword.’

Through a corridor, the Raja led me to a dishevelled room with a wooden staircase to the upper storey where there was once an impressive open fireplace for burning wood: the original kitchen.

Lifting a dusty, threadbare carpet, he held open a door.

‘Look!’ he said, ‘This was the escape route.’

‘Yes, she’s a mythical character, who supposedly still illuminates the snowwrapped Rakaposhi when she comes looking for her long lost love, who left her behind in search of enough gold to make her entire wedding dress.’

A Land Rover roars into the compound.

Frightened chickens quack-quacked, spreading their wings. Cows moo approaching their milking. The sun’s slide from its zenith causes the sky to frown. Its mood change invites a lonely cloud.

‘That tea must be ready by now. I trust it’s to my great-grandmother’s specification.

I recall as a boy listening to my mother giving precise instructions, in the time honoured tradition, to the chief cook and she was the only one allowed to make it.

It’s passed down to my wife now. She’s so precious about it she won’t let the cook

come anywhere near it.

‘Remember,’ she would say, ‘two dessert spoonfuls of green tea added to half a cup of boiling water with a pinch of baking soda until deep maroon, then add salt to taste allowing to simmer until the colour stops changing. Add another two cups of water. Put glowing embers from the fire into the funnel of the samovar, tea in the other compartment and fill it with milk, allowing the mixture to be totally infused, adding a handful of blanched whole almonds - an optional extra.’

‘Let’s take it here. Or would you rather have it in the garden?’

Descending into the garden I caught the aroma of green tea with almond arising from the samovar; the surrounding dainty tea cups on saucers awaiting their fill. Home-made Fitty beginning to itch; dried apricots, peaches and mulberries reminiscing about their lives on trees. My taste buds alert in relished anticipation.

Pummelling a Paisley patterned feather cushion on the seat, the Rani showed me to an IKEA garden chair and table on which were placed: a tin of semi-skimmed Marvel, a Queen’s portrait pottery mug with a tea bag, its Lipton’s yellow label dangling beside a packet of Edinburgh tartan shortbread.

The veranda telephone recorded a message from Fortnum and Mason against the background of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.

Pouring hot water into my mug from the still boiling Murphy Richard electric kettle, she said, ’A home from home. Welcome to English tea.’

Sitara Khan is the author of A Glimpse Through Purdah - Asian Women - the Myth and the Reality. She is an educationalist, equal opportunities campaigner, and a poet noted for her distinctive style of performance drawing on the rich Urdu and English poetic traditions. A collection of her short stories: Illuminations, is expected to be published in 2012.

Sitara Khan

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Moniack Mhor, Inverness-Shire

Arvon hosts week-long creative writing courses in four historic and beautiful houses set in inspirational countryside. Whether it’s our 1000 year old house in Devon or Ted Hughes’ former holiday home in Yorkshire, you’ll find the creative writing house for you. For over 40 years Arvon has welcomed writers of every kind through its open doors. With two published and professional writers as tutors - and a mid-week guest - our simple formula continues to boost the writing lives of thousands of writers every year. So join us for a week to write fiction, poetry, short stories and plays or try one of our specialised courses, like food writing or writing for radio. We also have weeks for biographers, translators and graphic novelists. Arvon runs a grant scheme so everyone can attend.

Find out everything you need to know at:

www.arvonfoundation.org or for a brochure call:

020 7324 2554 13

Lumb Bank, The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre, West Yorkshire

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MUSLIM WRITERS, MUSLIM READERS Sumayya Lee

I read a Mark Amend quote the other day - the best stories are not just about living out your fantasies; they are inspiration for living up to your dreams. This, I believe, is pretty accurate fiction is inspirational. It is also a reliable escape mechanism, because in the end, the good stuff happens to good people and evil is vanquished. Fiction feeds the inner child that still hankers after a positive denouement. The ingenuous child that clings to a happily ever after, because, lets face it, life can be pretty dire at times. And in ‘real’ life good things don’t always happen to good people. In real life, good people suffer.

But even so, this does not mean that a writer of fiction has a duty to provide readers with a happily ever after. It’s your story after all and as the writer you are free to tell it as you wish unless (and therein lies the rub) you are writing Islamic Fiction.

Wikipedia defines Islamic Fiction as: written by and for Muslims as it expounds and illustrates an Islamic world-view in its plot and characters. Islamic fiction excludes vulgar language and explicit depictions of sexuality; as well as aims to identify non-Islamic practices as such, portraying Muslims as striving to practice Islam.

A laudable genre – and one that needs the Book Industry Standards and Communications to recognise it as a category and code it as such. This will make it easier to recognise.

Based on the definition above, it is clear that Islamic Fiction is written by Muslim Writers. However, the converse, that all Muslim Writers write Islamic Fiction, is not necessarily true. And making this distinction appears to be a problem for Muslim Readers.

Muslim Writers of Crime, Horror or Science Fiction are spared this predicament – their genre is clear and does not carry any expectations. Nonetheless, for those of us writing about life, love and ordinary things – a kind of social realism aimed at a wider all-inclusive audience - post publication involves a barrage of criticism. Because Muslim Readers hold writers like me to Islamic Fiction standards and then proceed to lambaste us because our work ‘falls short’.

We get accused of ‘exposing the faults of a Muslim’. Clearly, the fact that we are writing about fictional characters is lost on our detractors – and the question arises - do we write about reality or do we present a sanitised version of that messy reality so that we create a good “impression”?

Maybe not every Muslim writer wants to tell a censored tale. Maybe, like me, they want to write about Muslims who remain steadfast upon their Islam while being human and fallible - because that’s what I view as being closer to the truth.

I also believe that even the most ‘lost’ can find redemption and salvation and while Islam may be perfect, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, are Muslims.

I concede that ‘ostrich mentality’ may be the norm in reality, yet a fictitious world has the advantage of allowing us to face up to the societal issues we grapple with. People are free to pretend to be what they are not, but this does not mean a writer has a ‘duty’ to create perfect characters to maintain that illusion. While I believe that a Muslim Writer will always endeavour to indicate un-Islamic ideas or practices and steer clear of glorifying them – normal secular writing does not involve moralising and preaching. The latter is unfortunately an expectation of many a Muslim Reader.

Jessamyn West says fiction reveals truths that reality obscures and T S Eliot espouses that humankind cannot bear very much reality. Perhaps it is this that prevents the Muslim Reader from dealing with the idea of others i.e. non-Muslims viewing Muslims in an unflattering manner. On this, I am convinced that if anything, it allows these others to note our common humanity – as opposed to regarding Muslims as a separate and unique species. Margaret Atwood echoes my sentiment - for me the novel is a social vehicle. It reflects society. Warts and all.

Sumayya Lee is the author of The Story of Maha (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book - Africa) and Maha, Ever After.

@sumayyalee www.sumayyalee.com

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CULTURES IN DIALOGUE THE CORDOBA FOUNDATION

The Cordoba Foundation is pleased to sponsor the new Stage and Screenplay Award at this year’s Awards. Looking ahead, we are also working with the organisers to introduce a new award category for 2012 to celebrate outstanding achievements around intercultural dialogue and understanding.

This award will celebrate the Spirit of Cordoba (the city, civilization and people) as a symbol of human excellence and intellectual ingenuity where cultures, civilisations, thoughts and lifestyles thrived and strived for the common goal of understanding, respecting, accepting and celebrating our commonalities and diversities in a spirit of progress.

About us Today, religious and political conflicts span communities and countries, breeding fear and distrust which in turn has led some to argue that a real clash between the Muslim world and the West is inevitable. Whilst some may deeply subscribe to this paradigm, The Cordoba Foundation believes that we live in a world full of hopes and aspirations - where opposing ideas work together to enrich our understandings and strengthen our humanity without having to clash.

Founded in 2005, The Cordoba Foundation is an independent Public Relations, Research and Training unit, which promotes dialogue and the culture of peaceful and positive coexistence among civilisations, ideas and people. We do this by working with decision-making circles, researchers, religious leaders, the media, and a host of other stakeholders of society for better understanding and clearer comprehension of inter-communal and inter-religious issues in Britain and beyond.

The Foundation’s activities include: structured consultation and advisory services; face-to-face interaction with decision-makers and figures of authority; in-house and commissioned research; workshops, seminars and debates; training and capacity-building; publish periodicals and journals; and media relations.For more information, please check our website www.thecordobafoundation.com.

THE CORDOBA FOUNDATION

Proud sponsor of the Young Journalist award

Congratulations to the nominees and winners

The Waqf is a campaigning platform for Muslim organisations and individuals. Its key focus is on Social Networking, Lobbying, Leadership Development Initiatives and themed Grant Giving Programmes. The Waqf looks to establish contemporary Muslim identity, which facilitate a stakeholder involvement in today’s societies particularly through the deployment of technology. The Waqf seeks to assist the articulation of Muslim issues and concerns at policy making level, political representation and at community wide representation. The Waqf has developed strong relationships in the business sector and funds partnership initiatives with leading businesses.

THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF FICTION Jonathan Ruppin

Muslims themselves still account for a narrow majority of sales, as far as we can tell, but there are two principal types of customer. Scholars still spend large sums, often hundreds of pounds at a time – our proximity to the School of African and Oriental Studies is clearly a factor. But general readers, particularly younger Muslims, perhaps those born in the UK when their parents or grandparents were not, are displaying a far greater interest in finding out about the roots of their culture and the tenets of their faith. They buy religious texts, commentaries and interpretations and more basic guides to Islam.

There are also many more non-Muslim customers who now wish to find out more about a faith whose depiction in the media is often simplistic and focuses all too frequently on the more extremist elements. The Quran itself is now a very popular title and indeed has as much of a place as the Bible on the bookshelves of those who want to understand the fundamental place of religion in shaping literature.

Unlike many of the doom-mongers in the book trade, I am optimistic that books will remain a vital part of our culture for the foreseeable future. We live in an increasingly globalised culture where events around the world now affect us all, where science is addressing matters that concern us all. This makes people curious and books are the best way to find out more.

Television is too dumbed down, newspapers are too guided by editorial leanings and online it’s tricky to tell the facts from the froth and the falsehoods.

This is especially true when it comes to religion. The modern world throws together many different beliefs and all too often conflict results. Many Britons would have given little thought to Islam until the Balkan conflict or even more recent events, but it is now, both in Britain and abroad, under now close scrutiny.

So it should come as little surprise to hear that at Foyles, at whose vast flagship shop on Charing Cross Road I work, the religion department is seeing an uplift in sales that outstrips almost all other categories. And it is the Islam section that is flourishing most of all.

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There is of course a crossover with the department of History and Politics, just as there is in real life. The section covering the Muslim-majority regions of the world has also seen a marked increase in sales and again it is both Muslims and non-Muslims who are trying to find out more. This spring, a promotion of books about those countries in the Middle East and north Africa that have seen so much upheaval in recent months proved hugely popular, even at those branches of Foyles whose sales tend to be dominated by more populist titles.

Fiction, too, plays a significant role in the way people find out about the wider world. Around half the books sold in Britain are novels, not least because many people find stories, especially when they focus on individuals or communities, a more accessible way of understanding life in other cultures.

Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist shows how the misgivings of Muslims about aspects of American foreign policy are things with which many in the wider global community can identify.

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner was the bestselling novel in the UK in 2008 and the author’s second, A Thousand Splendid Suns, has also gone on to sell in its hundreds of thousands. Orhan Pamuk, Naguib Mahfouz, Elif Shafak, Leila Aboulela, Mirza Waheed and Kamila Shamsie are all core stock at any good bookshop.

Of course, fiction does not always provide an objective representation of a society, although I think readers are usually savvy enough to realise this. But fiction, like that great British

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tradition, satire, has never changed the world directly: it holds a mirror up to society and shows how the attitudes and policies of politicians and religious leaders are affecting the lives of all of us. It helps us all work out what we value and what we must fight to preserve and what we must seek to change.

I was saddened by David Cameron’s declaration of the failure of multiculturalism in Britain earlier this year. Aside from giving apparent official sanction to views expressed in some of the more reactionary sections of the media, it seemed a very premature judgement. The last few decades have seen an unprecedented intermingling of different nationalities, surpassing the total international migration of all previous human history. For centuries we have mixed largely with our own kind, resulting in an inbred wariness of outsiders. Now such attitudes are being challenged.

I do believe strongly that differences in beliefs need not be a barrier to a harmoniously multicultural world. And this is not just wishful thinking. While race is still a highly potent issue in America, it is a nation that went from Rosa Parks to Barack Obama in a couple of generations: this seems like cause for hope to me.

This is why of all the literary prizes I have been asked to judge, the Muslim Writers Awards have been the most rewarding. Each book on the shortlist has given me a new perspective on Islam. I have already found myself recommending books that I might easily never had read to both colleagues and customers.

Literature is central to British culture: so many readers are keen to embrace new worlds, both in fact and fiction. By highlighting some of the finest in contemporary fiction, the Muslim Writers Awards give non-Muslim readers the opportunity to overcome what is the source of almost all prejudices: ignorance. We fear what we do not understand and a window onto an unfamiliar world is the very best way to overcome that fear. They should also give encouragement to Muslim writers, who can feel that there is a sizeable and diverse audience for what they have to say.

Jonathan Ruppin is the Web Editor of Foyles bookshop and has twelve years experience in book retailing, including nine years on the shopfloor. He is also a member of the Editorial Committee of the journal, New Books in German, and a member of the Advisory Board of Arts Council-funded publisher, And Other Stories.

@foyles www.foyles.co.uk

www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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SEE RED

Mina Muhammad

Articles. Short stories. Novels. Novellas.

Poems. Fanfiction. Blogs. Instant messaging. These are just a few examples of forms of writing that I have attempted. The list goes on and on.

I am inspired by many authors, including Malorie Blackman, Patricia Cornwell, Dennis Lehane, Jacqueline Wilson and many others. However, J K Rowling has inspired me the most - there’s something so frighteningly impressive about the sheer number of book sales made per second, as well as the fact that Professor McGonagall made that very accurate prediction at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: “Every child in the world will know his name.”

And it’s true - ask any child in England and I guarantee you, at least ninety-nine percent will know who Harry Potter is.

I identified a lot with Harry, Ron and Hermione. I revelled - and still do, to this day - finding out more about his adventures. I have even penned my own in the last couple of years. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the first “real” book I read at the age of seven.

Inspired by this, and wanting to create a character as much-loved as Harry, I started writing from when I was eleven.

I created characters, many of whom were mere caricatures of my teachers and friends, or exaggerated versions of characters I knew well and loved at the time. Yet this was a start, because as I grew up, my writing grew with it, and I developed and fleshed out my characters more as time went on, adding details and creating families and so on.

the Young Muslim Writers Awards 2010.

Upon finding out of the shortlist, my mother told my family, including my uncle. He happened to have a friend, Ola Laniyan-Amoako, who had recently founded a publishing house for ethnic minority writers, and she was looking for new authors. My uncle forwarded my entry to Ola and she asked if I wanted to turn it into a novel. I agreed and was thrilled at being offered such a wonderful opportunity. From there, See Red was born.

I was even more delighted - as well as astounded - when I attended the YMWA 2010 and I found out I had won in my category. The writing process of turning the short story into a novel was difficult and frustrating at the worst of times. That summer, I was moving house and it was Ramadan, too, so it was hard finding the time to sit down and write because I was so busy. However, writing a novel in five months was also an uplifting experience and one that I learnt a lot from.

The run-up to the publication date was a lot of fun, especially in between revision for my GCSE exams. BBC London News did a

One character whom I liked in particular was a girl named Salsabeela. I wrote a short story about her, and then a writing competition caught my attention.

Incidentally, it was the Young Muslim Writers Awards. I entered the short story, titled Colour Coded, and to my surprise and delight, Colour Coded was shortlisted for Best Short Story 14-16 for 19

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short piece on me; a few newspapers and magazines also interviewed me and even my school got involved with my book. I thoroughly enjoyed my book launch in Stratford Library on 2nd April, which was attended by friends and authors Sufiya Ahmed and Sagheer Afzal. That day, the YMWA also held a workshop for writers aged 11-16 as well.

After my book’s publication, I continued with my exams but also attended two other award ceremonies. One I was a guest to - the Young Muslim Writers Awards 2011and the other was one I was shortlisted for: the Asian Women of Achievement Awards. There was a judging day in April and the ceremony in May. Although I did not win the award (the Arts and Culture award, won by Anusha Subramanyam), the food served there was some of the most gorgeous food I have ever tasted!

At this point, I had met several writers and through a MWA workshop I have been able to develop my writing.

When I was asked to judge the Published Children’s Book category, I was thrilled and of course, I accepted. All five shortlisted books were excellent in their

own right and it was difficult deciding on the best one. I am honoured and proud to have taken part in such a prestigious and internationally renowned judging process, and all the shortlisted entrants - not just the ones in the category I was judging in should be proud to have got this far.

In fact, even those entrants who weren’t shortlisted should be proud to have taken that first step.

To me, and I am sure, to other writers (shortlisted or otherwise), writing isn’t just a hobby or pastime.

It is more than that. It is a lifestyle, and not necessarily one that is easy.

I believe writers should be awarded for that. There is a reason why so much emphasis is placed on the first verse of the Qur’an revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): “Read, in the name of your Lord who created you.”

Mina Muhammad is the author of See Red (Urbantopia Books).

She was winner of the 14-16 Short Story prize at the 2010 Young Muslim Writers Awards and was shortlisted for the Asian Woman of Achievement Awards.

Mina is currently studying for her GCSE’s at Sarah Bonnell School in east London.

@MinabMuhammad

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Proud supporters of the Muslim Writers’ Awards and sponsors of the

Unpublished Short Story Award 2011

May Allah SWT increase our abilities to communicate through the written word.

Ameen.

RED. WHITE. PURPLE HAZE for Jimi and mi primo Mark Gonzales

at an intersection of crosses and crescent moons is a place where angels kneel on prayer rugs woven from broken tear glass promises. one day diane sawyer will want to interview a real star and the comets will have no comment Black Holes get high to mask the pain of watching Black Angels die in seattle.

They couldn’t afford the light bill much less time travel, so they buy star dust and shoot up with space needles

give peter king my address. I have nothing to hide. what can you ask me that the inquisition did not? i offer up salaat at ground zero in the same space you sold us on auction blocks some launch desert storms as desert masquerades Iliad opens to an operation odyssey dawn homer’s odyssey drop bombs libya our trojan horse plugging headphones into heartbeats

my cousin swallowed the moon in the shape of a bullet. in the aftermath of his death his twin substituted meth for breathing as I’m grieving Empire massacres people names weapons after them:

Apache {helicopter}

moving to maternal melody of world womb system water breaks tsunami birth to a new society atlantis cradles New Orleans orphans Egypt embraces the dead red sea amongst a blue ocean I’ve got Bahrain on the brain. Palestine on my mind there are millions of John T. Williams this city will never find

One day a plane will be named Gaza bush the first to osama back to bush to obama. military write blank checks bounce them off of West Banks they bankroll. we bankrupt. corrupt politicians unholster officers weapon mortgage our parents pension holding retirements for ransom...

Biggie in the studio rhyming: “it was all a (American) dream” charlie sheen imitates chris brown temper tantrums sammy davis dancing on Rihanna’s face we are a post-it-note race society placing pastel reminders that you do not belong

Michael Jackson is Mary Magdalene robbing the liquor shelf in a convenient store economy no man in the mirror, only short term memory with no memory of middle passage Inquisition inhaling a puff puff no mike tyson robin given givens dragging James Earl Beard behind texas kkk tailgate racist reagan raking body over pop culture coals shrimp on the barbie standards of beauty we stand, old soul with young voice like Kool Mo Dee meets Salah ad-din how you like me now so bloody still beautiful and to this system unbowed.

Mark Gonzales is an HBO Def Poet with a Master’s in Education, a Mexican and a Muslim whose work has been described as a Khalil Gibran meets Pablo Neruda in a lyrical break dance cypher. He is respected internationally for his creative approaches to suicide prevention, human rights and human development via performance, photojournalism, and narrative therapy.

@markgonzalesis

IN SEARCH OF A COMMON WORD Catherine Pellegrino

I have always worked in publishing, for publishers - Victor Gollancz, Puffin and Bloomsbury and as a literary scout for Liz Van Lear, a pressurised but exciting job which involved reading, reporting and keeping a very close eye on everything coming out of the UK industry for your clients, European publishers who want to be the first in line for the next big book.

However, for me, becoming a literary agent, specialising in children’s and YA writers was to discover the perfect job and my only regret is that I didn’t discover it sooner.

I joined Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd in 2007 to set up my own children’s list. As I hadn’t come from an editorial background, (as a language graduate, I had found myself working in foreign rights and the fascinating world of international publishing), I had no authors to bring with me, I began life as an agent with a blank slate. And so for two months (it seemed like a lot longer), I read unsolicited manuscripts, I approached writers and spent a considerable amount of time working on scripts which I felt had potential.

Nearly five years down the line and a small stable of wonderful writers under my belt, I still spend a considerable amount of my time reading (of course) but also editing manuscripts which I had never thought would be such a big part of my job but which for me is one of the most satisfying. All the other activities which you naturally associate with agenting: meeting editors, authors and writers, pitching manuscripts, negotiating contracts, attending events, launches and book fairs are now all part of my everyday.

One of the wonderful things about working in children’s and YA literature is that we are currently living in a golden age of children’s writing and I often find so much children’s literature

far better written and far more creative than a lot of the books published on the adult side. Children’s publishing is also less prey to the impact of economic downturn as book buying parents are more likely to cut back on their own book buying than that of their children.

Less, cause for celebration is the shocking lack of cultural diversity in children’s literature which, although this was something I was aware of from the books on offer at my children’s London Borough of Haringey primary school, the stark lack of anything remotely culturally diverse hitting my Inbox meant that it was something I could no longer ignore.

Joining forces with Penguin and Commonword in Manchester to set up a new prize to promote cultural diversity in children’s writing, The Diversity Prize, the details of which will be announced this Autumn, is one of the things I am most proud of doing as an agent. It is also a great honour to be invited to be a judge on the Muslim Writers Award and I am really excited at the prospect of reading manuscripts written from the perspective of British Muslims. I am sure the award will bring to light some great new voices in children’s writing. Of course, any initiative that helps promote a greater understanding and empathy towards Muslim culture and faith to the wider community is of great importance and what better way to do it than bringing new voices and new stories to young readers.

Catherine Pellegrino is a literary agent at Catherine Pellegrino and Associations which she set up in July 2011. The agency specialises in children’s literature. She was involved with Penguin and Commonword in Manchester to set up The Commonword Children’s Diversity Prize.

CATHERINE PELLEGRINO

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ACROSS THE WINDOW SILL SHADAB ZEEST HASHMI

When I found my windshield severely cracked from the impact of a stray object (or vandalism), it was late at night; the stars, road signs, Eucalyptus trees, shops, traffic lights distorted into bright and dark mosaics trapped in glass. Vivifying and eerie at once, the night became a theater, a dream reel.

Next day, as I drove in sunlight, the cityscape appeared fractured through the glass web. I felt vulnerable, singled out for an obstructed, warped view, while others could see everything as it is.

By night the Rorschach of the cracks had given me new maps to plot, new images to utilise. It had given me that prized moment when a view becomes a scene, a person becomes a character and ordinary life offers meaning by taking on dramatic proportions.

By day, I longed for clarity; to see things as they are. The accidental distortions of the fissured glass had not only inspired fantasy, they had provoked an urge to experience

reality; the two elements that a writer negotiates constantly.

This accident carried meaning, quite literally, in an image, and reminded me why I’m drawn to the idea of a window in the first place. A window is a paradox - it conceals and divides, it reveals, it invites a conversation between the inner world and the outer. It is a way to isolate and to unite. The walls of human history are riddled with windows - windows half-open, windows shuttered and sealed, latticed windows, serendipitous windows, palace windows, prison windows, windows shattered by bombs. A window frames experience. It gives the writer a subject (whether inward or outwardly drawn) and, every now and then, a way to escape.

Judging the MWA 2011 Contest was a great privilege for me, and the excellent writing produced by the young participants opened many a window in its imaginative, bold, discovery-bound, revelatory and graceful way. What a gift! I wish the winners as well as the participants the best in their literary careers.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose book Baker of Tarifa won the 2011 San Diego Book Award for poetry.

Her work has appeared in many journals worldwide. She is currently the writer-in-residence at San Diego State University. Her second collection Kohl and Chalk is due out in 2012.

Www.shadabhashmi.com

THEGOALKEEPER Charlie Jordan

Invisible to thirty thousand eyes, I dragonfly between the turf and net.

The ninja way is mine despite my size, my arms carve air in sushi rolls and yet the ball is sly, elusive to my touch.

Sometimes it finds brief glory in a goal, and then they see me. Blame me, hurling such abuse they curse my blue and white striped soul.

But when I read the striker’s bare intent… predict the angle and abort his aim, the crowd’s applause is brief although well meant.

Goalkeepers aren’t the stars of any game.

But mountain-high I rise, leap and crash land; I know the game’s controlled by my gloved hand.

Charlie Jordan is a radio presenter, spoken word artist and a former Birmingham Poet Laureate. She is passionate about working in schools, community settings, inner city settings, in prisons and PRU’s. She is currently working on a children’s book.

Charlie Jordan

Proud sponsor of the Writer of the Year award 2011

On behalf of the team at Picsel we congratulate the nominees and wish them all the best of luck on the night

Picsel is a dynamic mobile solutions provider, whose pioneering software enables true office mobility. Key stakeholders such as handset OEMs and Operators - use Picsel’s solutions to deliver a vibrant and visually stunning mobile experience that rivals, and often supersedes, the desktop PC experience. Established in 1998, the company employs over 60 staff at its headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland and Korea. The company’s technology has shipped more than 500 million units worldwide, with a customer list that includes LG, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung and Sharp.

Picsel is a market leader in user experience and embedded mobile software application space. We are proud that others have recognised our achievements as follows; Queen’s Award for Enterprise Picsel received UK’s most prestigious Queen’s award for International Trade and Innovation. (2008) Mobile Entertainment Awards Picsel was a finalist in the Mobile Entertainment awards under the best ‘Managed Service Platform Category’. (2008) Red Herring Global 100 Picsel Technologies has been included in Red Herring Magazine’s list of top 100 most promising firms globally. This award recognises Picsel’s leading position as the market leader for mobile content delivery. The award recognizes firms driving the ‘Future of Mobile Technology’. (2007) The Fast Growth Business Awards (FGBA) celebrates the very best of the UK’s most ambitious businesses.

Picsel won the ‘International business of the Year’. (2007)

Business Insider e250 Awards recognise Scotland Best and Fastest growing SME’s. Picsel won the ‘Fastest Growing Company of the year award’ and ‘Company of the year award’. (2007) Scottish Software Awards Picsel Technologies was awarded Software Company of the year award and for Best Embedded Software Application for File Viewer. (2007) UK’s Hot 100 Companies Picsel was ranked 14th fastest growing private technology company in the UK by Real Hot Business ranking awards. (2007) BCS IT Industry Awards Picsel’s CUI Browser was a finalist under the BT Flagship - Project Excellence Award. (2007) Deliotte Technology Fast 50 Picsel was ranked 16th and 65th fastest growing central European technology company in the UK & EMEA region respectively. (2007)

THE JOURNEY Bina Shah

Shah Latif rose from his chair. He went silently to the door, gathering up his long cloak and his walking stick. He did not need to tell his wife that he was setting out on a journey: she was used to him walking out of the door and returning later that evening, or after a month. It was one of her gifts to him, the ability to endure his absence without resentment. He did not know where he was going, but he knew he had to go; his soul was most elevated when his feet were moving. Sayedah Begum too got up and began to grind wheat for the evening meal. Already her face was composed again, her eyes large and gentle, fringed with lashes like the graceful chinkara that lived in the Thar Desert.

his camels. The sound of santoor and tabla, reed flute and violin mingled with the scent of incense and roses, weaving a tapestry of aural and sensual pleasure that the Lovers would feast upon tonight.

They did not exchange any words, any farewells or entreaties to take care, to go in safety. Her faith in God was absolute: she entrusted her husband to Him every second of every day, and so there was never a need to acknowledge the connection that could never be severed.

His two pups, Moti and Kheeno, leapt up when they saw him emerge from the door, but he did not reach down to pet them as he often did when going to the village. They whined and scrabbled in the dirt, then sat on their hind legs and watched him go.

He turned and walked away again, and as he walked, he recited the verse that he had written soon after his marriage, never telling anyone that he had written it for her: The heart has but one beloved, Many you should not seek: Just give heart to one, Even hundreds may seek; Weasels they are called, Who get betrothed at every door. But the camel seller, the man from Thar, called out to him as he passed.

A few malangs came up to Shah Latif, spotting him standing a small distance from the crowd. Dressed in their robes with begging bowls hung around their necks, they greeted him and sought blessings from him, a few lines of new verse to be sung at the festival tonight.

But Shah Latif was silent, and soon they dropped away from him and melted back into the crowds. The truth was that his heart had been broken by the slanders, and he had nothing left to give to any of them.

After a time he came to the shrine of his grandfather, Shah Abdul Karim. Its green flags fluttered in the wind; people were milling around, some with purpose, some aimlessly. The urs would be well underway tonight, with thousands joining in the celebrations, reciting poetry, listening to music, dancing in ecstasy.

The market was already bustling, farmers eager to sell their foods and livestock, traders ensconced in their small stalls from where they sold gold and silver ornaments, silks and embroidery, leather and brass. There was even a small camp set up in one corner of the open field in front of the dargah where a man had come all the way from Thar to sell 27

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“O great Shah! Where do you go?”

Shah Latif stopped, surprised that this man, a stranger, recognised him.

“Peace be upon you, O Man of Thar.

How do you know me?”

The man laughed. He was thin and dark, weather-beaten, and wore an ajrak wrapped into a turban on his head.

“Who does not know the Shah of Bhit, whose Risalo has spread far and wide?

As long as there are men in Sindh, you will be known. But why do you walk away from the urs, when most people are only just arriving?”

Shah Latif said, “I am called away on urgent business.”

“But where do you go?”

“I do not know.”

“Then that’s urgent business indeed; God’s business. When a man is called but knows not his destination, only the Creator knows what’s needed. But He’s told me to tell you where to go.”

“Where is that, then, my friend?” Shah Latif leaned forward, curious and interested. He was not surprised that Allah Saeen had entrusted this simple desert man with such an important message. There were signs everywhere, if you only knew how to look.

“He bids you to go to my homeland, into the desert.”

“So it shall be done. I thank you in His name.” Without another word, Shah Latif turned and began walking east.

The man from Thar stood watching him as he went, shading his eyes from the sun, the tall figure growing smaller and smaller as he vanished into the distance.

Never had he seen someone so eager to obey God’s word, the desert man thought to himself, before turning back

to tend to his beloved camels.

Shah Latif walked and walked for many days and nights, sheltering under a tree at night, drinking from the river in the morning, eating a simple meal of flat bread, and taking a cup of goat’s milk wherever it was offered to him. Some people knew who he was, some did not.

But everywhere he went he could hear snatches of his verse being sung, recited, used as weight in arguments, admired, appreciated.

Beloved’s separation kills me, friends, at His door, many like me, their knees bend… …Countless pay homage and sing peace at his abode…

nights and days of the prosperous times…

Then one day he climbed a small hill and came down the other side onto a sand dune that ran parallel to the winds, rows of undulating ridges rubbed into the sand like the lines on the roof of his mouth. Nearby, he saw a group of women dressed in the bright colours of the desert, their arms covered in white bangles up to their elbows. They were cutting at a small scrub tree with hand-axes, and singing as they worked: In deserts, wastes and Jessalmir it has rained. Clouds and lightning have come to Thar’s plains. Lone, needy women are now free from care, fragrant are the paths, happy herdsmen’s wives all this share. And when he recognised their song, he knew that he had arrived at his destination.

…Tell me the stories, oh thorn-bush, of the mighty merchants of the Indus, of the

Bina Shah, a novelist and journalist from Pakistan, is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories, and recently completed a fellowship at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

bina shah

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ISLAM CHANNEL MOHAMED ALI

Since its beginning in 2006, Islam Channel has not only been one of the strongest supporters of the Muslim Writers Awards, but also a strong advocate for an initiative that celebrates the works of Muslims within the literary field.

As always, we firmly believe in celebrating the diverse talent that intellectual, gifted and inspirational individuals can achieve: every year Islam Channel affirms this message through media support.

One of the core ethoses that Islam Channel carries is mirrored in this initiative, and creating a broader sense of awareness and representing Muslims in a positive manner and recognising the contributions made

by Muslims within the larger society. Â The initiatives success is a clear indicator that British Muslim culture is constantly developing and flourishing, and has a lot to contribute towards the literary field.

CEO Islam Channel Mohamed Ali

Proud Sponsors of the Published Children’s Book Award 2011

@ISLAMCHANNELuk

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS TIME? NEWCALL UK

At the time of writing we, Newcalluk, are 16 months old. Having launched a start up business in an overcrowded market space during a recession, we thought it would be a good idea to share our learnings with ‘start up writers’ experiencing similar challenges in their field.

But what, if anything, do businesses and writers have in common? Well, both use the skills at their disposal to make the world around them a better place to live in; good products and services offer new ways of solving consumer problems; good writers and artists offer new ways of examining the human condition. In this respect, you could say that good businesses and good writers share the same intention.

So, what do you do with a good intention? Here are a few pointers we picked up whilst developing and delivering our service.

Start small. Tomorrow’s next best seller starts with today’s best journal entry. This idea does not go against

the conventional wisdom of blue sky thinking – think as big as you like! Just act on something you can do right now using the materials you have in front of you and organically grow from here.

Start. The best way to knock enthusiasm on the head is to cave into your worst fears. It’s human nature to talk ourselves out of trying something new. It’s how our defence mechanism (unhelpfully) protects us from harm. You can check this by starting small. But don’t expect your worst fears to thank you for taking this approach; there is no pleasing your worst fears. Just accept this and move on.

Put your hand up. Promote your work. This may be difficult if you are passionate and protective about your writing and also painfully shy. A good way to get around this is by focusing on the people you are writing for. They may never get a chance to read what you thoughtfully and diligently put together if you don’t make it available.

So call a publisher.

and established competition like this one. (But don’t part with your money unless your life depends on it and even then negotiate and barter).

Accept knock backs as a necessary part of your development. You won’t grow without them. Question what each experience is trying to teach you and be grateful for the feedback. Market research is an expensive commodity and you’re getting this for free.

Have a good time. They’ll be days when your work will take over your life. You’ll have to stay on top of your administration (absolute key), meet deadlines and crazy client demands.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a tip for this; you’ll just have to ride it out. But we do have a strapline for the good days which you are welcome to borrow: ‘It’s not work if you love what you do!’

Good luck.

Asif Mohammed Managing Director

Set up a free blog. Enter an affordable

Proud Sponsors of the Unpublished Poetry Award 2011

Newcalluk is a professional telephone fundraising service for UK charities, specialising in donor retention through customer satisfaction feedback and one to one relationship building.

WWW.NEWCALLUK.COM

SEEKING TO SIP SOME SIMPLICITEA A PICNIC OF POEMS IN ALLAH’S GREEN GARDEN Dawud Wharnsby

political baggage weighing down my faith, and avoid commercialisation of both my art and my religious practice.

Ironically - within a year of releasing “A Whisper of Peace”, it was evident that I had spun myself onto a new treadmill of social expectations, corporate pressures and dogmatic demands. Suddenly there were Muslim music companies being born - kicking and screaming with managers, agents, contracts and financial backers. Public demand became feverish and fickle for newer artists and bigger concert tours, then equally as critical of what they were hearing and how it meshed with their diverse religious views. Budgets began to climb for production, photo shoots and music videos. Companies, artists, friendships and faith soared then shattered with the irrational growing pains of a musical niche market I never dreamed I would see develop within such a seemingly simple religious community.

In 1996 when I wrote and recorded my first poetic songs directly referencing Qur’anic philosophy and tradition, I had no idea what impact - and what repercussions - they would have. “A Whisper of Peace” was one of the first collections of English Language nasheed distributed professionally around the world. Self-produced for a budget of only $500, the songs were new and novel to the ears of a religious community who, in those days, were a pocketed minority in the English speaking world, often misunderstood and misrepresented - desperate for validation and a voice of their own, in a language the masses would understand.

The secular musical career I had been immersed in since my late teens was willfully surrendered to compile the unique hymns. Tired of a creative treadmill which seemed to be more a race of egos than a journey of spiritually centered artistic growth with other likeminded writers and thinkers, I was pleased to share my poems with a community who, at that time, seemed to care more about the ideas and motivational potential of what I offered, than what I looked like.

My innocent artistic experimentations with English anasheed were, in many ways, also personal efforts on my part, to simplify my artistic expression, de-clutter the cultural and 31

Throughout history, the arts have always been an important vehicle for helping cultures and civilisations define who they are, develop their strengths and empower their communities toward positive social change. When artistic expression, however, becomes dominated, defined or monopolised by those with wealth, political power or dogma that stifle independent thought and expression - cultural collapse is sure to follow. As a multi-medium artist, my work - whether through drawing, film, photography, poetry or music - has always stemmed from a desire to better understand my reflections on, and my emotional reactions to, what I observe and experience in life around me. “Marketing” my expressions to a specific community or group of people has never been something I have been comfortable with or liked to do. Often “the arts” are divided into genres or aimed at niche markets - with more focus being placed upon the expressions as commodities and “products” in and of themselves, than as individual human “perspectives” aimed simply at inspiring thought, discussion and feeling to whomever they may reach.

These are wonderful times for independent artists. The ease of global communication makes it possible for artisans of all mediums to freely share their work without having to be tied financially, ideologically or even geographically to any one institution.

Such an international stage of opportunity is indeed reason to celebrate the work of dedicated crafts-people - recognising their talents, abilities, passions and paradigms - enabling their offerings to truly enhance the global culture and civilisation of our time.

www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

Throughout history, the expressions and artistic advancements of those inspired by the Qur’an have shaped the world as we know it. Architecture, music, poetry, philosophy and even the development of sound acoustics would not be what they are today, or mean what they do to all of humanity in our time, if not for the bravery and ingenuity of past artisans.

Artists inspired by the Qur’an’s instructions to ponder, reflect, beautify, enhance and bring balance to the world are still impassioned in all corners of the earth - their expressions as equally beneficial to all of humanity now as the outpourings of their predecessors. The Muslim Writers Awards is a valuable platform to honour such spiritually rooted artists who have taken their work beyond the realms of religious propagation or dogmatic education, into the arena of cultural advancement for all of humanity.

The poems and songs of my latest project, “A Picnic of Poems in Allah’s Green Garden” were inspired by my personal attempts at stepping back to more simple and organic approaches to life, artistic expression and religious expression.

They were written and recorded for a budget of $0.00 in my home studio, with only the help of my daughters and my wife.

Their themes revolve around rudimentary aspects of life and faith - the importance of understanding our unique purposes in life, safeguarding our families, caring for our world and living in peace with others.

It is my hope that, if more of us picnic with our children outdoors - sing with them, strum with them, pass our hopes and dreams on to them through songs we pen ourselves with our own passions and prayers - perhaps Qur’an inspired culture in places like Britain and Europe will carry on for centuries, long after the fleeting trends of an exclusive 21st Century Muslim Music scene have become as obsolete as the audio cassette and CD. My heartiest congratulations to the winners and runners up of the Muslim

Writers Awards. May we all continue on our journey of hope and inspiration in order to make the world a better place for all mankind.

Canadian born poet/songwriter Dawud Wharnsby’s career has yielded a string of over fifteen solo albums, two poetry anthologies, numerous sound-track credits and collaborations with several talented artists.

As a voice for the socially-conscious and spiritually-driven, Dawud’s poetry and songs have inspired a generation of educators, musicians, poets and artists. Dawud and his family reside seasonally between their homes in Pakistan, Canada and the United States.

www.enterintopeace.com

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STINGS, PUBLIC INTEREST & INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM DAVID HAYWARD

As a BBC TV News editor and producer, one of the things I was always desperate to encourage was good strong investigative journalism. Groundbreaking reports, which uncovered the truth, exposed wrong doing and really made a difference. I’ve had the privilege to work with some excellent reporters over the years, on stories which fitted just this criteria.

To name just two, we investigated the criminal gang culture in Birmingham, at a time when gang wars were killing dozens of young men and women, including the friends Charlene Ellis and Letitica Shakespeare, at the New Year party in 2003. We also spent months investigating the animal testing laboratories at Oxford University and the extreme groups targeting staff and workers there.

latest small camera hidden in a pair of glasses. They had filmed people smoking on a train. It was just after the smoking ban had come in, but was this really worth it? It was quite easy to do, put your specks on and observe, so was this the best use of, at the time, great new technology? I didn’t think so.

With increasingly tight pursestrings and the well documented decline in the amount of money available for quality journalism, is the media making the best of the investigative journalism tools at its disposal?

As a result, this was not something that we would go into lightly, there needed to be a very good reason to carry out this sort of journalism.

One of the most effective and when used appropriately, a fantastic tool is capturing someone in a secret recording.

We’re seen this used during what I believe to be, one of the finest examples of journalism of 2011. The BBC Panorama programme sent a journalist undercover to work as a carer in the Winterbourne View home in Bristol. He exposed the most shocking examples of abuse of vulnerable adults. The footage of a young woman, with severe learning difficulties, being sprayed with water as she cried for help was truly shocking.

This is journalism at its finest, exposing layers of wrongdoing, criminal activity, corruption, a story clearly in the public interest.

On a number of occasions I turned down reporters requests to go undercover, because the story simply didn’t merit it. I remember being proudly shown some footage from another TV newsroom of someone who’d gone undercover, using the

But is this always the case for this type of tool. There is a huge question over whether the targets for many stings are relevant and in the public interest. It was a favourite weapon of the now defunct News of the World and many other tabloid newspapers

Photograph by Shironeko Euro

These both took time, effort and a great deal of skill and bravery. They often required clandestine meetings, undercover and secret filming, subterfuge and long hours forensically analysing and questioning the material and facts we had.

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in the UK. This piece on the Stirrer website, set up by the campaigning journalist Adrian Goldberg, raises some very interesting questions about the news agenda of parts of the British media.

It refers to an expose in May 2010, in which Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was filmed apparently agreeing to arrange access to her former husband, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and British trade ambassador, in exchange for a large amount of money.

So the Duchess of York was caught in a sting operation by the News of the World, so what? Is this news? Yes, but should the News of the World be doing this, after all how much influence does Prince Andrew’s ex-wife have? Not a lot it would appear.

Yet in many senses she is a vulnerable adult. Just because the News of the World, with its vast resources, CAN do such a story, does not mean that they should. After all the News of the World does not give a monkey about the mental health of any of the people it does a story on - as long as they can make money on the story. I’m not trying to stand up for the Duchesswho frankly was a bit dim to have been caught so readily, but the Royal Family aren’t exactly known for being the brightest spanners in the tool-box. But really if the Duchess is driven to depression (or worse) again, will the News of the World be happy - of course they will, it will make for another front page story. Just don’t call it journalism.

And this is not the only News of the World Sting operation to be criticised.

In 2009 a News of the World Journalist caught out the former England and Chelsea football captain, John Terry’s father Edward. Dan Sanderson, posing as a chauffeur brought cocaine from Edward Terry, after spending 6 weeks befriending him. The story led to a criminal trail. Terry senior was given a six month suspended sentence, ordered to pay 95 pounds costs and to carry out 100 hours community service.

However during the trial his lawyers, Neil Saunders, described it as a “highly unusual, if not quite exceptional sort of case”, and in sentencing, Judge Mitchell said: “It is a very, very clear case of entrapment solely to create a newspaper story.”

Was this a good use of an intensive and time consuming investigation? If it took six weeks to set up - was this really in the public interest? How many journalists in the same position would have done just this? Of course Dan Sanderson is not the most celebrated exponent of the sting operation. That honour falls to Mazher Mahmood, the former investigations editor of the News of the World and now undercover reporter for the Sunday Times. In the past decade and a half he has become the scourge of celebrities, sports stars and the royal family, often posing as the now infamous fake sheikh.

There is no doubt that he has brought hundreds of criminals to justice. These include paedophiles, arms dealers, drugs dealers and corrupt council officials. This is of course in the public interest and the cornerstone of any piece of fine journalism exposing corruption, wrong doing and criminal behaviour and should be applauded in all sections of the media.

However so often these cases have been overshadowed by salacious stings, criticised for being a case of entrapment rather exposition. As well as Sarah Ferguson and Edward Terry, we can add the names of Max Mosley, Lord Triesman, John Higgins and Lawrence Dallagio.

Stings and secret filming have led to some of the finest pieces of journalism, across the British media and as I say above should rightly be praised to the highest degree. But I believe it’s the responsibility of all journalists, editors and producers to make sure it’s always done in the public interest.

It’s been very interesting to see just this point in action, while judging the young journalism prize for the Muslim Writers Awards. I was hugely impressed by the work of many of the entrants and their obvious thirst for exposing wrong doing and highlighting the ills of society. It’s been both a privilege and a joy to see such young talent at work and hopefully getting the recognition they deserve.

David Hayward is head of the BBC College of Journalism which holds events surrounding journalism. He lectures and writes about the changing nature of journalism, and speaks at national and international conferences.

@davidh2 bbc.co.uk/journalism

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CALLING COMMUNITIES TOGETHER NIDA TRUST

Nida Trust wishes to congratulate the Muslim Writers’ Awards team for their invaluable efforts in inspiring and empowering Muslim writers to make a difference through the written word. As long as the written word has existed it has been used as a tool for social change. The Muslim Writers’ Awards is a gathering to celebrate and promote the word as a catalyst for change, and provides an opportunity for aspiring writers to share their thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams and inspire one another to create the kind of change that helps build better communities.

Vice-Chair and Director of Education, Nida Trust BABAR MIRZA

Proud Sponsors of the Published Novel Award 2011

Nida Trust is an educational charity which focuses on raising the aspirations and achievements of young people. It works collaboratively with parents, teachers and community groups to raise awareness and deliver key services that provide the best possible development opportunities for young people.

Young people are empowered and encouraged to play a strategic role in the development of the community through education, leadership, interfaith dialogue, sports, media, arts and charitable work.

@NIDATRUST

Puff in BOOKS Where are all the role models? That’s a question which comes into my head every single time I visit a school in the UK. And of course I don’t mean in the schools themselves, where the teachers and staff are inspiring. I mean in the books in the library – in their characters and the authors who write them. I often look around at a wonderfully diverse school, filled with children from all faiths and ethnicities, and I know that proportionately very few of the books available for those children will reflect their lives. With characters who look like them, have the same home-life as them, or the same cultural or social experiences.

There have never been more books available for children to read than there are right now. Many of them are brilliant – inspiring, exciting, adventurous, funny – written by equally brilliant authors.

But there is a glaring and alarming hole that needs to be filled by authors from more culturally diverse backgrounds, including Muslim writers. As an editor I want to read more stories with characters whose lives I haven’t read about before, but I don’t receive many from literary agents and they, in turn, claim not to receive them either.

The proactive creation of the Muslim Writers Awards is incredibly important. It gives writers a platform to submit unpublished work as well as published, which I hope then gives them the confidence – having won or not – to think about contacting literary agents for representation. I know there are many, many talented writers in our communities whose voices are not being heard. And I would always encourage all of them to continue to write and maybe join a writing group for constructive feedback, but to then take the plunge and submit their polished work to agents, who can help them on the path to publication. It starts there. And if you’re an unpublished author it starts with you.

I’m delighted that Penguin is sponsoring the Unpublished Children’s Story prize for the second time. We have a genuine commitment to nurturing new and diverse writing talent, and being involved with the Muslim Writers Award is one example of how rewarding and inspiring this commitment can be.

Shannon Park Editorial Director, Fiction Puffin Books TwiTTer: @srTPark Puffin.co.uk For a detailed list of literary agents, please refer to the Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, which is available at libraries, or to buy.

DRAWING TOGETHER DIVIDED SELVES Sameer Rahim

Oasis by Bahaa Taher – is their variety of tone and subject matter.

Roopa Farooki, a Pakistan-born writer, has written a readable and engaging novel that begins when Aruna walks out on her husband and returns to Singapore, where she was raised. The title, Half Life, refers both to a sense of divided selves and a gradual disintegration. Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour has been compared to one of Milan Kundera’s works for its political dissidence and essayistic style. It tells the story of two characters, Sara and Dara, who fall in love in a library. Parts of this playful and tricky novel are crossed out by an imagined censor, who is keen to excise anything he regards as unIslamic.

When I was asked to judge this year’s Muslim Writers Award, I accepted with pleasure. It’s always nice to feel you can influence things for (hopefully) the better, and I was looking forward to reading the three books on the shortlist – Half Life

by Roopa Farooki, Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour and The Wedding Wallah by Farahad Zama – I had not already come across.

Indirectly taking up the theme of repression is Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis. The novel, which is set in north-eastern Egypt in the 1890s, follows Mahmoud, an Egyptian police officer sent by his British commanders to become a district commissioner.

When I reviewed the novel in The Daily Telegraph in 2009 I pointed out its modern resonance: “Sunset Oasis is a lament for the failure of more than one Egyptian revolution.” If anything the book is even more compelling in the light of the fall of Mubarak.

But then I began to consider what a Muslim writing prize meant. Did the writers have to be Muslim or only the subject matter? How were we classifying Muslim – by degree of faith, by background, by name? These questions, I concluded, are pretty pointless. All prizes are arbitrary in the lines they draw around eligibility: the Man Booker excludes American authors and the Orange includes only women.

The final two books both deal with romance but in very different ways: The Wedding Wallah by the Indian writer Farahad Zama is the third in the series that follows Mr Ali, an arranger of marriages. Zama explores darker themes than he has previously, including the threat of Communist insurgents.

The Cloud Messenger is a lyrical and closely observed novel by the British-Pakistani writer Aamer Hussein. Mehran, from a grand family, comes to London to study Urdu and Persian.

There he meets and falls in love with Riccarda, an older woman, and becomes the close friend of Marco. Reviewing it in the Telegraph, Philip Womack wrote that: “There is magic in the everyday, suggests Hussein; in a phone call, or a letter, or even a cloud – and it is to those moments, however fleeting, that we should cling, even though all else is destroyed.”

What strikes me about the five books on the shortlist – the other two are The Cloud Messenger by Aamer Hussein and Sunset

All five books, I’m sure, will have passionate defenders among the judges. It will be difficult to choose a winner.

Sameer Rahim is Assistant Books Editor of The Daily Telegraph

@sameerahim

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2011 SHORTLIST PUBLISHED NOVEL

(Macmillan, PanMacmillan)

(Telegram)

(Abacus, Little, Brown Book Group)

(Sceptre, Hodder and Stoughton)

(Abacus, Little, Brown Book Group)

(Groundwood)

(Bloomsbury)

(Puffin)

PUBLISHED CHILDREN’S BOOK

(Omnibus Books, Scholastic)

(Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, Janetta Otter-Barry Books)

Unpublished Novel

Unpublished Poetry

Salma Bratt: Moroccan Tales of Love and Disaster Jessica Freeland: The Other Garden Ayshah Johnston: Scattered Pearls Ahmed Masoud: Gaza Days Yusuf Misdaq: Narayan

Safina Akram: Alas How I Miss My Sleep, and others Saleha Begum: Shadows in Harlequin Masks Thomas Evans: Beard is Beautiful, and others zkthepoet: Kitchen Set Libel, and others Shamim Razaq: To Keats, and others

Unpublished Children’s Story

Stage and Screen Play

Loay El Hady: Flutterby Muhammad Islam: Zayd and the Papyrus of Damascus Reba Khatun: The Case of the Disappearing Pets Wendy Meddour: A Hen in the Wardrobe Mehded Sinclair: When Wings Expand

Malik Basso: Somewhere Near You Conor Ibrahiem: Yours Faithfully Qaisra Shahraz: The Holy Woman Faisal Qureshi: The Footsoldier

Unpublished Short Story

Young Journalist (16-25)

Shahnaz Ahsan: Mother Tam Hussain: Little Flecks of Silver Sahin Kathawala: Malison Orison zkthepoet: Series Two, Episode Fourteen Hanzla Arif MacDonald: Sketches of Early Adult Life Daniel Oliver: Strange Marriage

Saman Anwar: Meddling in Marrakech, and others Siraj Datoo: Ethnic Profiling, and others Nabila Idris: A Story from Bangladesh: Licensed to Steal!

Tasnim Nazeer: Amnesty International Report 2010, and others Iman Qureshi: Why Are All Pakistani Men being Smeared in the Sex-Grooming Cases?, and others

www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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2011 judges

Published Novel Diane Banks founded Diane Banks Associates, a literary agency based in central London representing commercial fiction and personality-led, media or current affairs based non-fiction in the UK, US and foreign language markets, in 2006 following 9 years in London’s trade publishing houses including Penguin and Hodder & Stoughton.

Diane Banks Sameer Rahim studied English at Pembroke College, Cambridge before working as a teacher both abroad and in the UK. He has worked in literary journalism for five years reviewing both fiction and non-fiction. The publications he has worked for include the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman. He currently works on the Books Desk of The Daily Telegraph. He is also a judge for this year’s Forward Prize for poetry.

Sameer Rahim Jonathan Ruppin is the Web Editor of Foyles bookshop and has twelve years’ experience in book retailing, including nine years on the shopfloor. He has run a variety of departments, for both Foyles and previously Dillons, but specialises in fiction. He has also worked for two literary agents and one publisher. He has been a judge for the Costa Novel Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the British Book Design and Production awards. For three years, he wrote The Bookseller’s annual Paperback Preview, selecting the paperback titles most likely to be of interest to booksellers across the market for the forthcoming year. He is also a member of the Editorial Committee of the journal, New Books in German, and a member of the Advisory Board of Arts Council-funded publisher, And Other Stories. He reviews and blogs regularly for a number of print and online publications.

Jonathan Ruppin Published Children’s Book Mina B Muhammad is a sixteen-year-old Year Eleven student at Sarah Bonnell School. She won the Best 14-16 Short Story award at the Young Muslim Writers Awards 2010. This year she published her first novel, See Red (which was based on her winning entry), penned at the age of fourteen and published at fifteen. See Red was published by Urbantopia Books, a publishing house dedicated to culturally diverse books, particularly written by ethnic minority writers. She was shortlisted for the Asian Woman of Achievement Awards in 2011.

Mina B MUhammad 39

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Kate Lister is Customer Service Librarian at Market Harborough Library, and has been working in her current role since graduating from Loughborough University in 2005 with an MA in Library and Information Management. Kate is passionate about literature for children and young people, and has been active on the CILIP East Midlands Youth Libraries Group committee, which she chaired for three years. Through this work, she was a National Judge for the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway medal for 2010 and 2011.

Kate Lister Kevin Sheehan is the Learning Centre Manager at Offerton High School, where he has been for five years. He studied Information and Library Management at Manchester Metropolitan Library, and is currently completing work for a MA in Information Literacy at the University of Sheffield. In 2010 he was announced the School Librarian of the Year by the School Library Association.

Kevin Sheehan Unpublished Poetry An HBO Def Poet, a Mexican and a Muslim, Mark Gonzales lives in the centre of intersection. Living a line break of borders that resembles Khalil Gibran and Pablo Neruda in a lyrical breakdance cypher, he is respected internationally for his creative approaches to suicide prevention, human rights and human development via performance, photojournalism, and narrative therapy.

With a Master’s in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles, Mark is at the forefront of curriculum development, relationship building, and healing strategy sharing between historically traumatised communities. He is the first poet of the Hip Hop generation from the States to perform in Syria, and was an invited performer at TEDxRamallah, the first TEDx talks held in Palestine. He is currently serving as visiting professor and artist in residence for the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University.

Mark Gonzales Charlie has presented speech and music programmes on national and local stations including Radio 1, Radio 2, LBC, BBC London, Heart FM, Capital FM and BRMB. A former Birmingham Poet Laureate, she now mixes broadcasting with writing and performing poetry and working in schools. An ‘Artist in Residence’ at W.B.A. Football club for the ‘My Place or Yours’ project, she performed the resulting work at The Big Chill festival proudly wearing the striped club shirt. An experienced spoken word artist, she’s performed at numerous arts festivals, headlined the P.O.W. Litfest. Her one woman show ‘Buddhism and Ben & Jerrys’ previewed at the Bristol Old Vic for the Litup festival, and she’s currently working with the Decadent Divas writers who’ve performed a new show at Mac arts centre in Birmingham.

Charlie is passionate about working in schools and community settings using performance poetry to lift words off the page and encourage young people to find their voices and tell their own stories. She works with pupils in rural and inner city settings, in prisons and PRU’s, and is excited when pupils who struggle with literacy gain confidence in the spoken and written word. She is part of the new Midlands writers’ collective ‘Write Down Speak Up’, and is currently working on a children’s book.

Charlie Jordan www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s book Baker of Tarifa won the 2011 San Diego Book Award for poetry. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Poetry International, Nimrod, The Bitter Oleander, Journal of Postcolonial Writings, The Cortland Review and other places. Her second collection Kohl and Chalk is due out in 2012.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi

Unpublished Short Story Renowned for his four collections of lyrical short stories - most recently Insomnia - Aamer Hussein has also published two critically acclaimed novels: The Cloud Messenger (2011) and Another Gulmohar Tree (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize 2010). Aamer is Professor of Creative Writing at Southampton University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of English (University of London) and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004.

Aamer Hussein Sumayya Lee is the author of The Story of Maha (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book – Africa) and Maha, Ever After. She was born in South Africa and has worked as an Islamic Studies teacher, Montessori directress and taught English as a Foreign Language. She now lives, writes and counts the sunny days in London with her husband, two children and their cat. Sumayya loves reading and eating (preferably on a Durban beach) and hates injustice, Islamophobia, misogyny and February in England. For more about Sumayya, visit www. sumayyalee.com.

Sumayya Lee Maarya Rehman was born in London and studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Her love for reading began at an early age when she was a daily visitor at her local library, in East London. She has worked in libraries since graduating in 2003. Currently Maarya manages the adult stock and services for Newham libraries in London.

Maarya Rehman Di Speirs worked in theatre and for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation before joining the BBC in 1991. She edited the Woman’s Hour serial for three years and produced the first ever Book of the Week. She is now Editor of the BBC London Readings Unit, responsible for her team’s output on Radio 4, 4extra and Radio 3. She has been instrumental in the BBC National Short Story Award since its inception six years ago and is the regular judge on the panel. She was also a judge of the 2008 Asham Award and Chair of the Orange Award for New Writing 2010.

Di Speirs

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Unpublished Children’s Story Sufiya Ahmed is a new Puffin author whose novel Secrets of the Henna Girl will be published in March 2012. The book is about a British teenager’s ordeal when faced with a forced marriage.

Sufiya is also the author of the Zahra series: Zahra’s First Term at the Khadija Academy, Zahra’s Great Debate, Zahra’s Trip to Misr and the eagerly awaited Zahra’s Second Year at the Khadija Academy. The series, published

by BIBI Publishing, follows the life of British Muslim teenager Zahra Khan and her friends at a boarding school. A fun and mischievous read for 8–12 year olds, the books are peppered with successful and powerful female figures from Islamic history.

Sufiya previously worked in the Houses of Parliament but now spends her time visiting schools all over the country. She loves to perform book readings and also delivers creative writing workshops to budding young authors.

In 2010 she set up the BIBI Foundation, a non-profit organisation, to arrange visits to the Houses of Parliament for school children from inner city and disadvantage areas.

Sufiya Ahmed Following a degree in English and Education at Cambridge, Tamara spent a number of years teaching, specialising in reading development. After becoming disillusioned with approaches to reading in education and the move away from the inherent incentive offered by real books towards a focus on isolated mechanics, Tamara decided to open a children’s bookshop and reading consultancy.

Tales on Moon Lane Children’s Bookshop opened in 2003 went on to be shortlisted for Children’s Bookshop of the Year for its first three years, won Children’s Bookshop of the year in 2008 and 2011, and was named one of Time Out’s top five London bookshops in 2007.

Tamara has been a judge on the Costa and UKLA children’s book awards and has reviewed widely for the Bookseller and other magazines. Her first children’s book, Amazing Esme, the first of a three-part series, was published

by Hodder in September 2011.

Tamara Macfarlane Shannon Park was born in New Zealand and moved to London in 1999, where she is now Editorial Director, Fiction for Puffin Books. She previously worked on the Primary Literacy list at Collins Education and at Random House Children’s Books as a Commissioning Editor. In 2008 she was co-chair of the Children’s Book Circle, a London-based discussion forum for people involved in the children’s publishing industry. She has worked with a diverse range of authors, including Sufiya Ahmed, Jeremy Strong, Anna Perera, Lucy and Stephen Hawking, Alex Scarrow and Anthony McGowan. Shannon is on the Penguin Diversity Board where she has coordinated relationships with Mosaic and co-created the Commonword Children’s Diversity Writing Prize.

She passionately believes that children from all backgrounds should be able to find characters they identify with in the books they read.

Shannon Park www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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Catherine Pellegrino is a literary agent, specialising in children’s literature.

After four years working for the wonderful Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd, she decided to set up on her own and launched Catherine Pellegrino and Associates in July 2011. She has a small but growing list of talented writers who she is immensely proud of. Her writing tastes are pretty eclectic which is reflected in the writers she represents and she is very keen on diversity issues which is why she became involved with Penguin and Commonword in Manchester to set up The Commonword Children’s Diversity Prize, to encourage underrepresented sections of the communities that make up the culturally diverse landscape of the UK. She has always worked in publishing, mainly in house, working in Foreign Rights departments for publishers: Victor Gollancz, Penguin and Bloomsbury where she had the pleasure of attending the editorial meeting, where all those present, having read three chapters of a debut children’s book, agreed that a modest advance should be offered to an unknown writer, J.K Rowling.

Becoming an agent though, was she discovered, the most satisfying job she ever had and the buzz of discovering a new writer is totally addictive and has her completely hooked.

Catherine Pellegrino Unpublished Novel Arifa Akbar is the deputy literary editor and arts writer at The Independent.

She has written across the paper including author profiles, book reviews, arts features and TV columns. She was the newspaper’s arts correspondent for four years. She joined The Independent in October 2001 as a news reporter and has written extensively on Britain’s Muslim community and the war on terror. She led the reporting team during the 7/7 London bombings (the coverage for which was short-listed for the Press Gazette ‘team’ award in 2006). Her foreign assignments include the Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan and the Hajj (pilgrimage) in Saudi Arabia. She has featured as a columnist on the (former) BBC Radio Four show, Home Truths, and won the BT Feature Writer of the Year award in 2000. Before joining The Independent, she wrote features for The Sun, India Weekly and numerous regional papers. She has an English Literature degree from Edinburgh University and a Masters in Gender studies.

Arifa Akbar Vivian Archer was born in London, trained at Central School as an actor and worked on TV and stage before switching to bookselling. She has been a bookseller for over 35 years and the last 22 at Newham Bookshop in East London.

The shop reflects the diversity of the area, and she has been proud to host many literary events with established and emerging writers. She particularly welcomes new writers from the Asian sub-continent. Some of the authors the Newham Bookshop have hosted are Benazir Bhutto, Kieran Desai, Kamila Shamsie, Jamil Ahmad, Ali Sethi, Tariq Ali and forthcoming Imran Khan.

Vivian Archer

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Kavita Bhanot grew up in London and lived in Birmingham before moving to Delhi to direct an Indian-British literary festival and then to work as an editor for India’s first literary agency. She spent two years running a small guest house in the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh and now lives in Manchester. She has had several stories published in anthologies and magazines and is editor of the anthology Too Asian, Not Asian Enough, Tindal Street Press 2011.

Kavita Bhanot Simon Prosser is Publishing Director of Hamish Hamilton & Penguin Books, where his list of authors includes Zadie Smith, Mohsin Hamid, Ali Smith, Jamil Ahmad, Vikram Seth, Jonathan Safran Foer, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, John Updike, David Foster Wallace, Paul Murray, Javier Marias, W.G. Sebald, Noam Chomsky and Susan Sontag.

Simon is a founder and Co-Director of the annual Port Eliot Festival, and the publisher of the literary magazine Five Dials. He is also a Trustee of the Civil Liberties Trust.

Simon Prosser Stage and Screen Play Farah Abushwesha is a writer, producer, and the founder of Rocliffe, now held at BAFTA and renamed the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum. Her first live action film was the B3/UK Film Council backed Chicken Soup, which was selected for LA International Film Festival, BFI Times London Film Festival, amongst others. No Deposit, No Return was awarded Best Pitch in Cannes 2003 by The Times and was awarded UKFC funding.

She has also directed and produced the documentary Sir Alan Sugar Challenge with Griff Rhys Jones. Her other work includes BBC Drama Micro Men, The Scouting Book for Boys (winner at London Film Festival), and London River (winner at Berlin International Film Festival.)

Farah is a guest lecturer at Pulse College Dublin and has worked in film education at the London Film Academy. She has participated, organised and chaired panels and events for BAFTA, LFA, Curzon Cinemas and at various international festivals.

Farah Abushwesha As an actor Chris has worked at theatres including The National, The Royal Court, The Traverse, The West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Birmingham Rep, The Gate and English Touring Theatre. Directors have included Howard Davies, Sir Richard Eyre, Sir Peter Hall, Richard Wilson, William Gaskill, Erica Whyman, Stephen Daldry, Ian Brown and Annie Castledine.

He has translated plays by Philippe Minyana, David Lescot, Rémi de Vos, Adeline Picault, Frédéric Blanchette, Catherine-Anne Toupin and Fabrice Roger-Lacan for The National, The Almeida, The Donmar, The Traverse and The Young Vic among others.

Chris was Deputy Literary Manager of the National Theatre for six years and is currently Literary Manager of the Royal Court.

Christopher Campbell www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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Nadim Sawalha is a veteran Jordanian-born actor whose career spans across TV, film, radio and theatre. His recent works include Captain Abu Raed, which won ‘The Audience Award’ at The Sundance Festival, The Hour for BBC One, West is West, and Coming Home at The Arcola Theatre.

His TV work includes Murphy Law, New Tricks, Dangerfield, Inspector Morse, Close and True, and ‘Mohamed Al Fayed’ in the BBC’s Justice in the Wonderland.

He has performed at some of London’s most iconic theatres, including Turning Over and Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Qur’an at Bush Theatre, Jenkins Ear and East is East at Royal Court, White Cameleon at The Royal National Theatre, A Dream of People at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Waiting for Godot at Lyric Studio, Hammersmith.

Nadim’s film credits include Syriana, A Touch of Class, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights, Cleopatra, Arabian Nights, The Avengers, Nativity, Whatever Lola Wants, Diana: Last Days of a Princess.

Nadim Sawalha Anna Perera was born in London to an Irish mother and Sri Lankan father.

She worked as an English teacher in secondary schools in London before becoming responsible for a unit for excluded boys. She gained an MA in Writing for Children at Winchester University and has since had six children’s books published, including the critically acclaimed Guantanamo Boy which was shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award and nominated for the Carnegie Medal. She learned about the plight of children held at Guantanamo Bay at a benefit event held by the human rights charity, Reprieve. Brollyproctions.com are adapting a play from the book, Guantanamo Boy which will open in Stratford Circus, February 2012. Her recent Young Adult novel, The Glass Collector, is set in Cairo.

Anna Perera Young Journalist (16-25) Asad can be seen presenting BBC London News on BBC1 but his career has undergone several changes in direction over the years. At the age of 18, he worked as a Foreign Exchange Dealer in the City of London. He then studied Physiology and Pharmacology at King’s College London, after which he worked at the House of Lords, examining some of the country’s oldest and most historical documents. Asad then went on to read Law in Bristol during which time he decided to try his hand at journalism. He won a place on the BBC’s News Trainee Scheme and within months he was a Political Reporter for the BBC in the Midlands and also a newsreader. Eighteen months later, he was the BBC’s Scotland Correspondent and the first Muslim newsreader on the BBC1 National News. Asad joined BBC London TV News a decade ago and he says “it’s like working with my best friends every day”. He has won a Royal Television Society Reporter of the Year Award for his BBC reports in London, Pakistan and Darfur and Asad has also been part of award winning teams on several other news programmes. After a near fatal motorcycle accident in 2008, Asad has significantly reduced his commitments outside work, spending most of his time with his family.

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David Hayward is head of the BBC College of Journalism’s events programme, a series of conferences, master classes, debates and discussions on all issues surrounding journalism. David has been a journalist at the BBC for 17 years. He began his career at Radio Leicester and has since worked across the BBC, as a reporter, producer and editor in network radio, TV and for the BBC World Service Trust in Eastern Europe.

Before taking up his current post, he was the TV Editor at BBC South Today in Oxford and ran the BBC local TV pilot in the West Midlands. He lectures and writes about the changing nature of journalism and the importance of journalistic ethics, regularly speaking at conferences both in the UK and internationally.

David Hayward John has worked as a producer and director for the BBC, Channel Four and many ITV companies over thirty years, and has over two hundred broadcast credits to his name. They range from short films to longer docudramas. His programmes range from short form to investigations to World in Actions to dramas. He has significant experience of ‘Big Event’ programming, having worked as a producer or director on every BBC General Election since 1979, as well as BBC Event Days, several world leader summits and more.

He has been media adviser to two past presidents of Guyana, as well as the current president. At Coventry University John invented the ‘Coventry Conversations’ which weekly have brought two hundred and fifty movers and shakers in the media world to the University and which have generated much press interest. These include many household media names such as Trevor Phillips, Mark Thompson, Baroness Amos, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark and Jeremy Vine. The Conversations have been called ‘the best speaker programme in any British University’ by Professor Richard Keeble.

John teaches broadcast journalism at all levels and encourages much interaction with the contemporary broadcast industry at local, national and international level. He has set up the Coventry News Forum for the local media to exchange views.

John Mair

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FROM AN IMAGINARY NOTEBOOK aamer hussein

alien tradition’(Urdu literature); many went rushing to examine my biography, in the belief that these pages must be about my studies or my life. Eugenides’ readers, too, keep stressing the autobiographical parallels in his novel. Is it easier, I ask myself, to write about your reading life in a memoir? Or to believe that a text is autobiographical because it deals with unusual reading habits, or that it deals with reading at all? Does that mean that Eugenides was a Barthes scholar in his youth, or a closet Catholic? Idle speculations on a train.

What these books reaffirm is that novels can include the narrator’s reading proclivities along with his/her other passions, just as memoirs can turn literary discoveries into narrative that’s as absorbing as fiction. I’ve sometimes thought my antihero was damned by poetry but I understand now (merely as one reader: remember Barthes says the author is dead) that the role of one of Mehran’s friends is to see him as the victim of a literary notion of romantic love, just as Eugenides’ heroine is told at one point that she’s learnt to fall in love through reading Barthes’ discourses. Perhaps poor Mehran isn’t quite so fatally literature-stricken. But I come to that conclusion before I arrive at that passage in The Marriage Plot: in fact, it occurs to me while I’m reading about Batuman and her time in Samarkand.

One of these books has been described as ‘a geek’s feast of literary references’. It isn’t mine: it might as well have been.

1.

2.

Recently I’ve taken to reading in airports and trains on a Kindle. Two of the books I’ve recently been reading are The Possessed by Elif Batuman and The Marriage Plot by Geoffrey Eugenides. The first is an unusual hybrid of travelogue and memoir, the second a novel. Both are to some extent about reading and the influence it has on their protagonists during their university years. Batuman’s autobiographical narrator goes off to Uzbekistan in search of the great Russian novelists, but also discovers Uzbek poetry, with its longing, its tragic loves and its mystic messages. The heroine of Eugenides’ novel falls in love with the work of the French critic Barthes, particularly with his discourses on love; one of his heroes discovers mysticism through the writings of William James and wallows in the words of St Teresa.

The reading habits of these characters remind me of Mehran, the central character of my novel The Cloud Messenger: like Batuman he immerses himself in romantic eastern verses (though with much less scathing irony) and like Eugenides’s heroine he falls in love with the idea of romantic love. I remember how some readers complained they found my pages about poetry difficult, because they ‘engage with an 47

An interviewer has sent me a list of questions in Italian, asking me about the influence of Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Jung, and (an afterthought) Sufi mysticism, on the sequence of tales that opens my novella Another Gulmohar Tree which she has just read in translation. I’ve read all the writers she mentions, but what I immediately remember as tangible influence is my father’s voice, telling me, in Urdu, the first of the tales I borrowed from the book, about the friendship of a soldier boy and a little frog. Another of the stories I stole, about a mortal maiden who is forced to marry a crocodile prince, was from Flora Annie Steel’s collection of Punjabi folk tales: I read it in English, but Steel claimed she translated an oral narration. A third story was inspired by the Quran, which I read in several languages including my own. So much for international influences.

Urdu wasn’t even my father’s first language. As soon as I learned to read I started discovering western children’s stories and like so many of us brought up to read only the literature of a second tongue I wonder what I’d have been like if I’d continued to hear and then to read stories in Urdu too. Maybe

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to answer that question I’ve spent years acquiring speed in my native language and now I can manage about 150 pages a day: still less than half of what I read in English. Funny, I think, that twenty years ago French and Hindi were the languages I read best after English; now my swiftest languages are Urdu and Italian.

But when it comes to reaching into the past, it’s Urdu literature with its Persian echoes that comes closest to containing me.

In my imagination I can go back into the history of my own language in a way I never could into the distant past of any other. I can write about the last century (or more) in the subcontinent in a way I probably never could about anywhere else. I could also probably set stories in medieval Persia, Baghdad or Istanbul more easily than in Paris, London or Rome. At times, though, I think that my imagination begins where Islam starts to spread across the eastern map. Ancient Persia, Egypt or India seem as remote as China, Greece, or Mexico. Xerxes and Osiris and Arjuna are my strangers. Yusuf and Majnun and the fallen heroes of Mir are my imaginary twins.

chance a collection of Bantu tales of transformation. Among them was a Bakwena variant of the tale of the mortal maiden and the prince of crocodiles. So much, then, for my recent claim that the stories that had most inspired me were from my own tradition: the shape of stories from everywhere is, after all, identical. Only the cloak of words we cover them in is taken from the stuff we have at hand.

As I read, my mind went back to how I’d transformed my story.

In the original versions the crocodile princes are revealed as some kind of human beings, under a spell in the African story, and able to transform themselves at will in the Punjabi tale. In my retelling, it’s the humans who change into crocodiles, one by one. First the bride, then her children, then her parents.

One young man who isn’t in the original sees the land of the crocodiles for what is; he doesn’t want to eat its food or become a crocodile. He escapes. Here I enter historical time and space: not just the late-50s Karachi setting of my story, but the moment in which I wrote, in 2008.

In my version, the land of the crocodiles is the place of illusions you see through and try to escape.

3.

You can’t have it all: Kindle doesn’t always supply the books I want. So on a shelf in a bookshop last Tuesday I found by

In the originals, it’s the magical place where you live happily ever after.

Aamer Hussein is a Professor of Creative Writing at Southampton University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of English (University of London) and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004. He is the author of a four collections of short stories and two novels.

aamer hussein

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A LIBRARIAN’S PERSPECTIVE KATE LISTER

Working in a public library, you come across all walks of life from the young toddler with granny enjoying the weekly story time to the 81-year old lady trying her hand at sending an email for the first time. Libraries are a centre point for learning, creativity and imagination. There are PCs to use, adult learning classes being run, events and activities for children to participate in.

But at the heart of every good library are books; books for the young and old, fiction and non-fiction, new authors, old series. When you tell people you work in a library, most people reminisce of childhood visits to the library, or being told to be quiet by the librarian. Using a library and reading as a child, is a vital part of growing up and one that should be encouraged.

In the town library I work in, over one thousand 4 -11 year olds participated in our summer reading challenge. These children are excited by Francesca Simon, Roald Dahl and Julia Donaldson. They love to read and be read to.

No sooner do these children reach adolescence, than they stop reading, spend all their time in front of their computer or television, or spend nights down the park with their friends.

They don’t read. Or so the press would like us all to believe.

Teenagers are much too busy with Facebook to read Malorie Blackman. I beg to differ. In my role as a librarian, I see the complete opposite. The stock selected for teenagers and young people is borrowed at phenomenal rates. After school and every Saturday, young people are seen browsing the shelves, reading the blurbs and taking home new and exciting titles.

And what choice there is too. For the last two years, I was fortunate to be a national judge for the CILIP Carnegie medal, and after reading my way through 56 titles on the

long list, I was amazed with the sheer quality of writing out there for young people at present. I am passionate about books, have always read, and find the quality of the literature available for children and young people outstanding.

Judging for the Muslim Writers Awards has been particularly rewarding, as I have been opened up to new lands and cultures through five expertly written novels, all of which have something to tell and gives you as a reader something to think about after you have finished reading them.

Children and young people will devour them, just as they devour the hundreds and hundreds of books available on open library shelves which they can take home and read for free.

It’s no secret that libraries are facing very difficult times at present. It’s hard to quantify the effects using a library has and when it comes down to budget cuts, libraries are an easy target. Surely in a civilised society, libraries should be at the very heart. Where else can people go in their free time, no questions asked, to discover foreign lands, interesting characters, other worlds. For if there aren’t libraries, offering a wide and varied choice of books to read, how do our children and young people access the breadth of authors and titles on offer? Where do those children who can’t afford to buy books go? But what do I know? I’m only a librarian.

Kate Lister is Customer Service Librarian at Market Harborough Library.

She was a National Judge for the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway medal for 2010 & 2011.

kate.lister@leics.gov.uk

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WALKing the talk Asad Ahmad

When I decided to become a journalist, there were hardly any Muslims working for BBC News. 15 years later, things have improved, but only slightly. This is largely due to the very few Muslims who see journalism as a realistic career choice. At the same time, Muslims are always quick to blame the media for the way they are portrayed in the press, even though they do not want to get involved with the industry themselves.

This presents a serious problem. In order to accurately reflect our society, the media need people from Britain’s different communities to come forward and make themselves heard and understood. However, the suspicion which has been created by the media, keeps Muslims away.

To solve this dilemma, we need to remember our society does not just belong to ‘other people’, but it also belongs to us.

We need to be prepared to take the responsibility for shaping Britain into the tolerant, vibrant society we all want it to be. If we want to be treated equally and respected for our contributions, we must do

the same for others whilst playing a full role in our society.

We need more Muslims in more professions like artists, journalists and authors whilst also championing our core Islamic principles everywhere we go, for fairness, equality, tolerance and understanding.

I am often asked about the best part of my job. The answer is simple and always the same. “Meeting people” I say.

The people I meet are from different faiths, colour and background, but they all have one thing in common. They are always fascinating and overwhelmingly decent albeit often misunderstood.

My experiences confirm in my mind that Muslims have as much to benefit from the rest of society, as society can benefit from Muslims. It’s a two-way process. British Muslims need to prove to themselves that they are comfortable with being both British and Muslim. Once we have done this, our community will naturally start to play a greater and more valuable role in British society, than it does already - and Britain’s wider society will naturally value the role of Muslims even more.

Asad Ahmad is a reporter and presenter on BBC London News.

He won the Royal Television Society Reporter of the Year Award 2006, and has been a part of award winning teams on several news programmes.

ASAD AHMAD www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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Messages of Support

I would like to congratulate the Muslim Writers Awards (MWA) on reaching their 5th anniversary. It is amazing how big and popular the competition has become since its inception in 2006. It is important that we continue to support all the young Muslims who have a love for literature and writing. The MWA does just that by giving a foundation and platform in which these gifted youngsters can showcase their talent.

Unified WBA and IBF Light-Welterweight World Champion

Amir Khan As relationship fundraisers for the charity sector, we usually support good causes from behind the scenes. However, we’re especially excited to be celebrating a landmark five years of the Muslim Writers Awards in London this month, by sponsoring the unpublished poetry category for 2011. Poets, like all artists, have the potential to lift our souls above great divides and bring people together. So congratulations to all our finalists. We hope you enjoy your evening.

www.newcalluk.com

Excelling in every arena is our responsibility. Much the same way as I do my best in sport, it is a delightful honour to be associated with the Muslim Writer’s Awards, a wonderful initiative supported by Muslim Hands which is all about inspiring and encouraging the next generation of Muslim writers.

As the Muslim Writer’s Awards enters its fifth year and with the debut in 2010 of the Young Muslim Writers Awards, I would like to congratulate all those who have been involved in this project and those who have been shortlisted for the awards.

2011 IAAF World 5000m Champion 2011 European Athlete of the Year 2011 Nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award 2010, 2011 Named the British Athletics Writers Association Award

Mo Farah I’m delighted that through the commendable initiative of the Muslim Writers Awards the great tradition of writing in our community is being encouraged. In the youth of Muslim diaspora we have a unique generation with a great deal to offer. This generation is a fusion of cultures and experiences, outlooks and ideas, often seen at variance. In the mundane and everyday living, there are countless reflections, syntheses, accommodations, negotiations, illuminations, that we must discover, document and share. They can provide the essential building blocks for a richer and better world from the new reality of shrinking and diverse societies. I am confident that the pen of Muslims can once again take its rightful place and make its mark in the human quest for truth and discovery.

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Celebrating its fifth year, MWA seeks out the fine minds of the Islamic world to pick their pen and share their thinking. Thinking or Taffakkur is the foundation for writing and for rejuvenating faith. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all those who participated in the awards and those who won them. I am proud, excited and privileged to offer MCB’s support.

Secretary-General, Muslim Council of Britain

Farooq Murad

It gives me great pleasure to offer support to the Muslim Writers Awards once again. At a time when the written word can travel across the globe within minutes, the challenge to utilise writing to spread positive messages is being met.

Over the past five years MWA has stimulated young people in greater numbers to show an interest in writing and reading, thus broadening their horizons immeasurably. The work of MWA in awarding and appreciating outstanding written works cannot be understated as it plays a part in the revival of the literary culture.

The written word has been instrumental in the establishment, propagation and defense of the Muslims. This has been the channel through which generations of Muslims have debated, found strength and excelled. The introduction of MWA in the twenty first century is highly significant.

MWA awards are coveted and serve to empower emerging writers. By holding high profile events MWA also promotes marketing of the books.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners and entrants and I hope this will inspire more people to take up this art.

Finally, I hope and pray for the continued success of MWA and all those who are involved.

Chair, Friends of Al-Aqsa

Ismail Patel

I used to be completely against the idea of competition in poetry but I realised how important competitions can be in getting people to write down their thoughts and getting involved in a wonderful art form.

I think at times like this when the Muslim community has lots of ideas said about them, which are not necessarily coming from them, using poetry is a great way of getting people to represent themselves in a creative and interesting way.

I’d like to pay respect to the Muslim Writers Awards and most of all I’d like to wish the contributing writers all the best.

Wordup, and increase de peace.

Author, poet and Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing, Brunel University

Benjamin Zephaniah www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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The Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) said: “Acquire knowledge and impart it to the people.”

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 107 I am delighted to be able to support the Muslim Writers Awards on its 5th anniversary. In politics, the power of the written word is often overlooked in favour of great oration - but it was the invention of the printing press that gave real impetus to the development of democracy in Britain and around the world. It was mass literacy and the democratisation of knowledge through reading that changed the world.

In 2011 however we face a growing problem: many people rarely read for pleasure, if at all, and some have never learned to read.

In my 2008 publication ‘Fairness not Favours: How to reconnect with British Muslims’ I outlined some of the educational challenges that our children face. One third of British Muslims are under the age of 16 – a new generation of young people looking for inspiration and role models, and the first place many of them look is the Muslim community in Britain.

There are huge challenges to overcome in educational attainment in this generation. Of all black and ethnic minority groups in the UK, people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origins are the least likely to have academic qualifications, and have some of the lowest attainment levels in secondary level education. For example, just 37% of Pakistani origin boys achieve more than 5 GCSEs at grades A*-C (girls do better, at 50%), and there are growing concerns about increasing levels of school exclusions amongst Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Somali origin boys.

These are serious problems which have worrying implications for the life chances of young Muslims in Britain. There is no doubt in my mind that the promotion of literature by British Muslims has an important role to play in tackling these problems. That’s why I take great heart in the support the Muslim Writers Awards has garnered in recent years, and welcome the introduction in 2010 of the Young Muslim Writers Awards; it’s a wonderful way of introducing a whole new generation of young people to the great power of reading, writing and literature.

What it is so impressive is that for all of these challenges, there is still great breadth and depth of talent to be found, and these awards do a fantastic job of recognising this. The 2011 shortlist shows that Muslim writers are doing an incredible job of documenting the story of what it means to be a Muslim in the world in 2011 - demonstrating the power the written word has to question, inform, excite and inspire.

To our children, growing up in a complex world with increasingly challenging questions to address over national, cultural and religious identity, the ability to read and explore literature is the most useful tool they have. By celebrating and promoting the diversity and talent of our own writers, we are creating new role models and providing opportunities and ambition for a whole generation of young people with talent, energy and creativity to burn.

Long may they continue.

Shadow Justice Secretary Shadow Lord Chancellor

Rt. Hon. Sadiq Khan MP

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Effective writing is more important than it has ever been, not least because the variety of communication tools we have at our disposal increases our opportunities to put metaphorical pen to paper. Whether writing socially, for pleasure or for work, your writing skills could change the world. Someone’s writing helped to usher-in sweeping political change in the Middle East earlier this year thanks to their words on social networking sites and text messaging. Who knows what effect your words could have?

Communication is not only about revolutions, of course, but when you want to tell people the facts, or put your points across in a debate, or tell a story – fact or fiction you must engage the reader and make your words believable. That’s not always easy, and it takes practice and the determination to keep going even when you don’t feel that you are getting it right. That’s a feeling that all writers experience, even the professionals.

The Muslim Writers’ Awards offer budding writers the opportunity to challenge themselves to produce some engaging examples of their writing and have them judged by the experts and then, insha’Allah, by their peers in the open market. We all have the opportunity to publish our work these days, on networking sites, blogs and other “new media”, but there is something intensely satisfying about someone else telling you that your work is of such a high standard that they’d like to put it into the public domain. It’s not an ego trip; it’s a personal challenge to write something that other people will want to read.

The entrants for the Awards set themselves that challenge and some will have their efforts acknowledged by a prize. Not everyone can win, so simply taking part should be seen as an acceptable aspect of the writer’s often lonely journey. If you are a winner, many congratulations; may this be the first of many successful forays into the world of writing. If you haven’t quite pulled it off this year, don’t give up. Do some rigorous editing and analysis of your work, and then enter again next year, and the next, and the year after. Whatever you do, keep writing. We need to hear your voice and read what you have to say. It’s a big world out there with plenty of media space waiting to be filled with words; determine to make them your words. Start writing today; we’ll wait.

Senior Editor, Middle East Monitor Chairman, Interpal

Ibrahim Hewitt

What is particularly special about these awards is that they are bringing to the fore the excellence of Muslim writers. Output has never been stronger - just look at the array of talent across the shortlist, and just look at the attention garnered by this event. When I spoke at the awards in Birmingham in 2008, I commended how the event had gone from strength to strength in just two years. Since then, it has become even bigger - and is now seen as a mainstay of the literary calendar. That fact is not only testament to the hard work of founder Imran Akram and his team, but the wealth and diversity of the prose and poetry which is being produced.

The entrants, and everyone involved in the awards, are doing something particularly important: inspiring other people to pick up the pen. I am always saying we need more role models in politics - but we need them in literature too. Because once someone has led the way in a field, it opens up the door for many others who realise ‘if they can do it, maybe I can too’.

The Muslim Writers Awards has another important role - promoting the work www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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of our Muslim writers to a wider audience. In doing so, they are sharing the insight these authors, writers, poets and bloggers provide into our rich and diverse Muslim cultures. After all, there is not one ‘Muslim culture’, but many. And there are many, many more stories to be told.

So I want to commend everyone involved tonight - from the organisers to supporters, the nominees to the judges - and wish you all the best.

Cabinet Minister and Conservative Party Co-Chairman

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi At times in the past decade, it has seemed hard to be both 100% loyally British and 100% committed as a Muslim. In future, it needs to be much easier.

Of course, Britain has been here before. Two hundred years ago, it was still difficult to be 100% loyally British and 100% committed as a Roman Catholic. Today, hardly anybody sees any conflict at all. More recently, and within living memory, the Jewish community was seen by some as “un-British”. Since then, the Jewish community has made an immense contribution to Britain’s social and economic development. We need the contribution of the Muslim community to be recognised in the future as equally significant and valuable.

And writers have a unique contribution to make. They can put into words ideas which others are only dimly aware of. They can explore in their writing what it is to be both British and a Muslim - the hopes and the challenges, the disappointments and the things which instil pride. They can describe for one part of our community how another part is feeling, and so help to build insight and understanding. They have a key role in establishing what it means to be a Muslim in Britain, so helping Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

I warmly welcome these awards. The achievements they will be highlighting are important for everyone in Britain. And I hope the awards will draw new writing to the attention of a larger audience, and help a new generation of Muslim writers in Britain to achieve the recognition which is their due.

Shadow Minister of State for Employment

Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms MP There are many good news stories emanating from the British Muslim community which are not heard. The Muslim Writers’ Awards, a project run

by Muslim Hands, helps to bridge that gap. The initiative is all the more important as we have huge talent in the Muslim community that can make a real difference. It is commendable that this is being showcased.

In today’s world where it is very difficult to find positive stories about Muslims, this event will go a long way to counter negative stories and will highlight the brilliant work, achievements and tremendous contributions that Muslims make to Britain.

By outing the achievers we are identifying Muslim role models for tomorrow - something that is so much needed.

Writers are important in a society as they influence the way we think and act.

By rewarding Muslims for their work in this field, the Muslim Writers’ Awards will encourage and motivate others to strive to improve and excel and help the improvement of not only Muslims but of the wider society too.

The work of those who have been short listed will be an inspiration to all of us.

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I am looking forward to reading and being inspired by the works of those who have been nominated for the awards. What we will see today is just a drop in the ocean of talent that we have in our community. We can draw an enormous pride from the nominations alone.

I hope you all have an enjoyable evening.

Editor of The Muslim News and CEO of The Muslim News Awards for Excellence

Ahmed J Versi

The Islamic Society of Britain support the development and encouragement of people to write and to express themselves through all forms of art and literature. It has always been a great medium to bring people together from different faiths and traditions. Well done to the Muslim Writers Awards for encouraging positive expression through writing and especially for our young people.

Executive Director, Islamic Society of Britain

Julie Siddiqi

“God’s Revelation to humanity came as words. The first word of the Qur’an is ‘Read!’ Muslims today have to command the very highest standards of literary skill to communicate the Divine Message to as wide an audience as possible, and to explain the essence of being Muslim in the modern age. It is my pleasure to support the Muslim Writer’s Awards, now in its 5th year, because for such literary skills to flourish, MWA needs all our support and encouragement.

Editor and CEO of emel media group

SARAH JOSEPH, OBE

www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk

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PERFORMERS

Lori ‘Zakariyya’ King is a performance poet (using the pseudonym ‘zkthepoet’), trainee pro wrestler and aspiring short story writer born in Hammersmith, raised in Richmond and now living with his young family in the Isle of Dogs.

His most persistent writing themes are childhood, loss and footballing nostalgia. At the time of the MWA nominations he is in the final year of a BA in English with Creative Writing at Greenwich University (under the mentorship of Adam Mars-Jones and Cherry Smyth) in anticipation of a Middle-Eastern teaching stint. He has resided as a student in Egypt and Qatar in recent years.

zkthepoet An upcoming Asian singer-song writer, poet, composer and activist, Ali was born in Pakistan and migrated to England as a child in the 1990s. Upon arrival Ali embraced his new surroundings and language as The East End embraced him. In this melting pot of diverse cultures, young Ali was exposed to various genres of world music. With street sense and credibility Ali not only blends in with the young crowd but his music (heavily influenced by traditional sub-continental Sufi mystic music or Qawwali) also appeals to the older generation.

Using the name ‘Ali Selassie’, Ali is also a spoken word poet who performs his work in Punjabi to truly capture the flavour of his beloved mother tongue.

For ease of understanding his work, he amalgamates each poem with its English translation whilst maintaining equal flow and rhythm.

Ali will be performing “Ranjha Mahi” (Beloved Ranjha) at the Muslim Writers Awards 2011, a couplet taken from the literary works of the famous Sufi saint, poet and philosopher Baba Bulleh Shah. The song speaks of a woman’s joy upon the return and arrival of her separated beloved. Like most works of Sufi poets, this arrangement has hidden meanings and explores the joy experienced when the love of God enters the heart.

The couplet has been composed and arranged by Ali with an endeavour to acquaint the modern world with the literary gems of the Punjabi language.

Ali Abbas

Zkthepoet and Ali Abbasi will also be joined by Dawud Wharnsby

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Muslim Hands Project

Share the journey. For further details please contact: Zainub Chohan | Project Co-ordinator E: zainub.chohan@muslimwritersawards.org.uk | T: 020 3246 0015 F: 020 3246 0017 A: Muslim Writers Awards, Suite 1.02, E1 Business Centre, 7 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1DU