“Perveen Shakir’s brilliance and importance is well-known in the Urdu-speaking world. How wonderful to have this finely translated and intelligently selected collection for readers of English.”

Kamila Shamsi

“Shakir imbued her ghazals (and nazms) with a distinctively feminine voice, consistently using the grammatical feminine gender and referencing womanly emotions, female attire and social constraints.
(This is) a refreshing, experimental approach to culling a selection … Shakir’s lightness of touch is difficult to replicate, but Rashid comes close to capturing that light touch in several poems.”

Mehr Afshan Farooqi

“Perveen Shakir’s delectably astute and candid verse, beautifully translated in this volume, captures the pain inflicted by the shallow-minded norms that govern women’s conduct in Pakistani society.”

Bapsi Sidhwa

“Naima Rashid's translation has kept faith with the fearless, subversive spirit of Parveen Shakir's poetry and in making it accessible to new readers, done us all a great service.”

Moni Mohsin

“When Zahra Hussain, a young and dedicated researcher, began writing her book on Perveen Shakir, most of her would-be publishers were more interested in a book on the scandals encompassing Parveen’s life than on any other topic. Naima Rashid’s sensibly and beautifully curated selection comes close to breaking that stereotype about Perveen Shakir, and women writers in general.”

Raza Naeem

“In translating Shakir’s works, Rashid has done nothing short of a public service; to move through this gallery of contemplations is to experience an invaluable poetic voice.”

Sarah Jean-Zubair

“Rashid’s translation is remarkably fluent; there is a confidence in its rendering that allows even the most pronounced yearning in Shakir’s verse to be expressed in an elegant timbre, and without recourse to the argot of lament.”

Afshan Shafi

“A new and significant translation of Perveen Shakir’s work.”

Muneeza Shamsie