Shaila Abdullah

Blog

On the path of healing

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So, here we are to another anniversary of a tragic day where we remember the innocent victims of September 11, 2001. Eight years later, there are few answers and more questions and yet, as I woke up to get ready for this day, I felt hopeful. We are an optimist country on the path of healing and recovery. We know where the blame lies and we are clearer on where to direct our anger. We know our friends and we know our foes. We are blessed with a leader who understands how to handle relations with the world and knows that anger or hatred is not the way. More than ever before, I am proud to be a citizen of this country. It is a place that has given me wings and allowed me to grow. It has watched and encouraged my transition from an outsider to one of its own.

On this, the eighth anniversary of 9/11, Austin-American Statesman ran an article on my work and views. See below:

Austin author attempts to convey essence of Islam, post 9/11

By Joshunda Sanders
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Austin author Shaila Abdullah says she knows the significance of this day — as a Muslim woman and as a writer.

Though Abdullah, who works full time as a Web site designer for an educational nonprofit, says she wasn’t personally targeted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the effects of 9/11 on her life as a Muslim woman were tangible.

Read more

Please remember that the book fundraiser ends on September 15. If you haven’t already, please buy a copy of Saffron Dreams using the link below. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. (AKF USA), an international development organization. The book is also offered at a discounted rate of $16.95. Feel free to buy a few copies for friends, family, and coworkers.

Support a Global Cause: Buy a Book

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According to the World Bank, the current global crisis has pushed 90 million people into poverty and is slated to have a disastrous impact on health and education projects in the developing world unless the rich nations begin aiding the poor. Please do your part in alleviating global poverty.

Your support can help disadvantaged people in the most resource-poor regions of the world
From now until September 15, 2009, if you buy a copy of Saffron Dreams using the link below, proceeds from the sale will go to the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. (AKF USA), a renowned international development organization. The book is also offered at a discounted rate of $16.95. Feel free to buy a few copies for friends, family, and coworkers.

Regular Price: $19.95
Sale Price: $16.95

Cover: Saffron Dreams

AKF USA develops and promotes creative solutions to address problems that impede development, primarily in Asia and Africa. Under the umbrella of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), AKF works in the areas of health, education, rural development, civil society and the environment. It is presently engaged in over 100 projects in 18 countries. Learn more | View lives impacted by the work

Review and Book Giveway on At Home With Books

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Alyce Reese of At Home with Books graciously posted a review of Saffron Dreams on her popular blog. If you comment on her review, you will be entered to win either an autographed copy of Saffron Dreams or A Taste of Saffron, a recipe book.

Enter today. The giveaway ends on July 27.

Here is a brief excerpt of the review:

“Saffron Dreams is an emotional story about one woman’s struggle to live a fulfilling life in the United States. Shaila Abdullah does a wonderful job of telling Arissa’s story – weaving her past memories into her present experiences. The story is written in first person from Arissa’s point of view, and really helps the reader experience what it would be like to live as a Pakistani woman in America. The writing is poetic and full of emotion.” Read the complete review

Since it’s been awhile, let me provide you some important links to Saffron Dreams below:

Buy the Book
About the book
Excerpt
Reviews
Contact the author

Here’s a book video of Saffron Dreams

Review and Interview on Suko’s Notebook

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Susan Ortlieb of Suko’s Notebook posted this review of Saffron Dreams on her book blog this week.

“I approached this book with a touch of apprehension, although I was at the same time optimistic, having read positive reviews for Saffron Dreams beforehand. You’d think that a book about a young woman who loses her husband in that tragedy would be morose and depressing, but instead this story is engrossing and life-affirming. Once I picked it up I couldn’t stop reading it. More than anything else, Saffron Dreams is a beautiful love story, a love which endures and lives on, and grows even stronger as time passes.” Read full review online

An interview of mine is also posted on the blog. Happy reading and thanks, Susan.

Author Interview: Shilpa Agarwal

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Shilpa Agarwal is the author of Haunting Bombay, a literary ghost story set in 1960’s India that was awarded a First Words Literary Prize for South Asian Writers and published this April by Soho Press. It will be published internationally later this year. Shilpa’s writing is informed by glimpses into moments of alienation and awakening, especially during geographic and metaphoric crossings: east meets west, centers meet the peripheries, the living meet the dead. She writes to call up the haunting utterances of the excluded, to excavate fragmentary memories that edge consciousness, and to imagine a more nuanced narrative of history itself.

Author Interview
There has always been an interest in multicultural writing in the US, particularly Indian writing. What do you feel is the strength of your first book and what sets it apart?
Haunting Bombay is a literary ghost story unlike any other in the genre of the Indian novel. When I was researching ghost stories, I discovered fairy legends, mystical traditions, references to ghosts in the ancient religious texts, and a 115-year old English translation of Sanskrit Vampire stories which I’ve woven into my novel. There is such a rich tradition of the supernatural in India yet I didn’t find any other English-language Indian authors who were writing about it. Readers instead have connected my writing to the mystical and magical literary traditions of South American writers Isabelle Allende and Gabriel García Márquez, and the literary ghost story Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Tell us about your experience as an Indian-American in the United States? How did you find your voice as a writer? What compelled you to write in this genre?
I grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh at a time when diversity was not celebrated as it is now. I had thought I was going to become a doctor like many of the adults in my community, and it wasn’t until college that I discovered books by international authors, many of them women, and fell in love with literature.

I have always been intrigued by stories that have been passed down through generations and which aspects are told, and which are deliberately forgotten. In Haunting Bombay, I tell the story of three generations of the wealthy Mittal family who have buried a tragic history and the ghosts of the past who ultimately rise up to haunt them.

I didn’t set out to write a ghost story but as I delved into the narrative, I wanted to hear the voices that had been lost or silenced through the chaos of loss, betrayal, and time. What if I could hear them whispering their version of the truth? So the ghosts became metaphors for the dispossessed, those who have little or no voice or power in a family, community, or nation.

How was the path to publishing for you? Can you give the readers a brief overview of your journey?
It took more than six years of writing and revisions to complete a solid first draft which I submitted to literary agencies in New York. I had a lot of interest and flew out there to meet with several agents. I underwent another round of revisions with my agent who gave me some insightful feedback then we submitted to publishing houses. Soho Press was a fantastic home for my book because they publish great literary fiction and an award-winning line of mystery/crime, and Haunting Bombay is a melding of these genres.

Tell us something about the character of Pinky in Haunting Bombay?
Haunting Bombay opens on the day a child drowns in the Mittal family but as it unfolds and the ghost of this dead child begins to haunt the household, the family’s tangled memories of that drowning day – of where and what they were doing when the child died – are revealed. The family and the servants all have secret desires and motivations, including my protagonist Pinky who is in love with the dashing, seventeen-year-old Nimish – her cousin-brother who lives in the same household. Pinky is the first to become haunted by the ghost and she is the one who is compelled to find out what happened that drowning day, despite all efforts to suppress and dismiss her investigations. Her journey is one of finding the truth but also finding the courage to face that truth because oftentimes truth itself can be terrifying.

What are you future plans?
I am currently working on my second book which is also set in India and weaves in mystical and magical elements. I am also considering writing a screenplay for Haunting Bombay.

Links
Author Website
Book Name: HAUNTING BOMBAY
ISBN: 978-1-56947-558-4
Buy Haunting Bombay