
Picture Credit: Yoda Press
Artwork by Amena Bandukwala
Cover design by Titash Sen
Sum of Worlds
‘Took my breath away.’
Shazaf Fatima Haider
What is it like to have a conversation with yourself? Which worlds do you cross when you meet all parts of yourself, broken and whole, in a great and courageous reckoning? The continents you have lived in – how do they change the contours of your self? How do these altered geographies show up when the self unfurls?

Picture Credit: Yoda Press
Artwork by Amena Bandukwala
Cover design by Titash Sen
Sum of Worlds
‘Took my breath away.’
Shazaf Fatima Haider
What is it like to have a conversation with yourself? Which worlds do you cross when you meet all parts of yourself, broken and whole, in a great and courageous reckoning? The continents you have lived in – how do they change the contours of your self? How do these altered geographies show up when the self unfurls?
Selected Writings

Picture Credit: Unsplash
Essay
Translation as homecoming, Lucy Writers Platform,
December 2020
What is our own language then? Can a language belong to us even if we have never lived where it is spoken? Can our own language only be received or born into, or can it be chosen by volition? Can passion carve a trail where a bloodline is missing?
Naima Rashid is an author, poet and literary translator. Her work was longlisted for National Poetry Competition 2019 and Best Small Fictions 2022. Her published and forthcoming books include Sum of Worlds (Yoda Press, 2023-2024), Naulakhi Kothi (Penguin Random House India 2023), Chicanes (Les Fugitives, 2023) and Defiance of the Rose (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Her writings have been widely published in journals of repute, including Asymptote, The Scores, Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham, RIC Journal and Litro among others. She is a collaborator with the UK-based translation collective, Shadow Heroes, which teaches young people to embrace all aspects of their linguistic and cultural heritage.
Somehow, despite all this, she has managed to raise a young man who is allergic to poetry.