KAMILA SHAMSIE    Tamgha-e-Imtiaz

Author

Kamila Shamsie is the author of seven novels, which have been translated into over 20 languages. HOME FIRE won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; BURNT SHADOWS was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the Premio Boccaccio (Italy);  A GOD IN EVERY STONE was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature (India), and won the Anisfield-Wolf Award (USA). Three of her other novels (In the City by the Sea, Kartography, Broken Verses) have received awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. A Vice-President and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and  recipient of a Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, she was one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ in 2013. She grew up in Karachi, and now lives in London.                                                                                                                                Photo credit: Zain Mustafa

MARYAM WASIF KHAN

Academic and Author

Maryam Wasif Khan is Associate Professor of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at LUMS University, Lahore. She has degrees in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles and Princeton University.  Her work on British orientalism, Muslim reform and nineteenth-century prose fiction in Urdu has appeared in Modern Fiction Studies (MFS), Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History (MLQ) and PMLA. Her book, WHO IS A MUSLIM? ORIENTALISM AND VERNACULAR POPULISMS (Fordham University Press: 2021), argues against conventional methods of writing literary history for colonial vernaculars such as Urdu or Hindi. A forthcoming project is a series of essays and contemplations on the possibilities contained in the act of reading foundational European texts outside of the Academy.

HANIF KUREISHI   CBE   Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Author and Playwright

Hanif Kureishi grew up in Kent and studied philosophy at King’s College London. His novels include THE BUDDHA OF SURBURBIA which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, THE BLACK ALBUM, INTIMACY, THE LAST WORD, and THE NOTHING. His screenplays include MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID, and LE WEEKEND. He has also published several collections of short stories. Kureishi has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the PEN Pinter Prize, and is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His work has been translated into 36 languages. He is professor of Creative Writing at Kingston University. His latest book, WHAT HAPPENED? (Faber and Faber 2019) is a collection of essays and fiction.

FAIZA S. KHAN

Publisher and Writer

Faiza S Khan is a London-based publisher and writer. She is Consulting Publisher at Bloomsbury Publishing where her authors include the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Pakistani writers Mohammed Hanif and Sanam Maher, and New York Times bestsellers Mikki Kendall and Holly Whitaker. She is co-editor of THE LIFE'S TOO SHORT LITERARY REVIEW (Hachette, India 2011), an anthology of short stories from Pakistan. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Daily Beast and Boundless. She is the co-host, along with Moni Mohsin, of the podcast Browned Off, which looks at culture in the UK with an emphasis on diversity and representation. Faiza is writing her first novel

SHAN VAHIDY

Editor and Granddaughter

Shan Vahidy, some-time escapee from Penguin Books, is a freelance editor based in London. Much to her own surprise, she has accidentally specialised in heavy-weight non-fiction, although she also enjoys working on novels. Authors goaded in a professional capacity include Carla Power, Paul Mason, Moni Mohsin, Ian Morris and Victoria Finlay. She is the granddaughter of Zeenat Haroon Rashid and a permanent co-ordinating judge on the panel.