In Search of Return

Shifa Haq is psychoanalytic psychotherapist and assistant professor of psychology in the School of Human Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi.

As I write this review, Ukraine is suffering untold devastation from Russian military attack and invasion. The collective trauma is horrific. The bombing is incessant. Millions have become refugees in a matter of weeks. Like many people worldwide who are witnessing these horrors, I seek to have courage in the face of fear, sustain faith, and be an agent of change within the collective. In the course of my own suffering of the current collective trauma, I turned toward Shifa Haq’s In Search of Return: Mourning the Disappearances in Kashmir.... In her writing about the Kashmiri collective trauma, Haq opens the reader to a deeper register of pain, helping us also to bear witness to that previously disavowed trauma. She restores not only our humanity but also our collective ability to foster healing from trauma that, on a spiritual level, affects all of us. Shifa Haq’s book opens windows of faith.

• ForewordAcknowledgments Introduction 1 The Work of Mourning 2 Disappearing Act 3 Tracing Back, Moving Forward A House with No DoorsComb GentlyThree Days in the River4 Bearing Witness, Imagining Disappearance 5 The Shape of Mourning ReferenceSubject IndexAbout the Author