Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Asian American Studies. "Al Andalus—a unique cultural convergence in human time where myth hovers the way moths are drawn to lampshine, and in her luminous, spare language, Shadab Zeest Hashmi catches its essence: attar of memory, the perfume of peace, sweet rising dough of dailiness; at the end, smoke rising, the reek of war, useless keys, exile, sorrow distilled and deepened by the presence—in these deeply felt, lovely poems—of what feels newly lost."—Eleanor Wilner

Baker of Tarifa

Literature & Fiction

Hashmi, Shadab Zeest

Poetry

Poetic Matrix Press

<p>Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Asian American Studies. Winner of the 2014 San Diego Book Award for Best Published Poetry. The bride who contemplates her half paralyzed face on the eve of marriage (in the opening poem, "Facial Palsy") is emblematic of the larger story of Pakistan: an ancient culture fractured by new and divergent identities. The poet, like the bride whose face is divided into "lit" and "dim" halves, gazes into the mirrors of history and politics to make sense of the disjunctive parts that refuse to come together as a whole. The very multiplicities of culture that the poet celebrates ("Socrates / mangoes cut in cubes," "Iqbal's poems on marble construction paper," "rouge from Paris, coconut oil from Orissa") are also the cause of dissonance ("War cries of the Greeks / in plume red / Mongols / in horse-leather red," "Gunga Din's ghost lifted from the tennis courts / of Peshawar Club")—dissonance that is further amplified in the post-9/11 wars to which a Pakistani-American response in poetry has thus far been absent. KOHL AND CHALK is that response in the voice of a daughter, a mother, a global citizen.</p>

Kohl and Chalk

<p>Comb is the story of a girl "under the spell of history," growing up in the shadow of the legendary Khyber Pass which is both a bridge between disparate civilizations and an impassable divide. Shadab Zeest Hashmi reveals the tangles of empire and language, history and myth, exile and belonging - from the lens of childhood, integrating memory with the history of one of the most significant geopolitical and cultural thresholds of the world. This is a book that honors thresholds in a time of closed doors, written with a poet's conviction in the regency of love.</p>

Comb

Sable Books

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Books by Hashmi, Shadab Zeest

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hashmi, Shadab Zeest. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Baker of Tarifa

Kohl and Chalk

Comb