Saira Shah – författare

Imagine that a jewel-like garden overlooking Kabul is your ancestral home. Imagine a kitchen made fragrant with saffron strands and cardamom pods simmering in an authentic pilau. Now remember that you were born in London, your family in exile, and that you have never seen Afghanistan in peacetime.These are but the starting points of Saira Shah’s memoir, by turns inevitably exotic and unavoidably heartbreaking, in which she explores her family’s history in and out of Afghanistan. As an accomplished journalist and documentarian–her film Beneath the Veil unflinchingly depicted for CNN viewers the humiliations forced on women under Taliban rule–Shah returned to her family’s homeland cloaked in the burqa to witness the pungent and shocking realities of Afghan life. As the daughter of the Sufi fabulist Idries Shah, primed by a lifetime of listening to her father’s stories, she eagerly sought out, from the mouths of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the rich and living myths that still sustain this battered culture of warriors. And she discovered that in Afghanistan all the storytellers have been men–until now.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Anna knows that if you want something really badly, you have to plan it. After all, she’s a chef. To make a béchamel sauce, you need the right ingredients in the right quantities, at the right time.So when she gets pregnant, she plans a perfect new life in Provence for her perfect new baby.But when their daughter Freya is born with profound mental and physical disabilities and Tobias decides that he can't love his child, Anna is determined to persuade her husband that keeping Freya and moving to France is still the life they've always wanted. The family ends up in a vermin-infested farmhouse in the Languedoc – where they become a magnet for a cast of eccentrics. With their rickety home falling down around them, and Freya's hospital visits becoming frighteningly frequent, Anna draws on reserves of strength she never knew she had to get her life back on track and keep her family together.

“A journey of the heart…Shah writes with sensuous passion” (The New York Times Book Review).When Anna, a chef by profession, discovers she’s pregnant, she prepares to leave dreary London behind and move to idyllic Provence, France, with her husband, Tobias, and her lovable baby-to-be. But she’s suddenly forced to reevaluate her dreams when their baby is born less than perfect. Little do Anna and Tobias know that the change in plans sparked by Freya’s birth is the beginning of an incredible journey of the heart. Along the way, they discover that there truly is no such thing as a mouse-proof kitchen, and though life sometimes gets a little messy, it’s the messy bits that give it meaning. The couple and their new daughter end up in a vermin-infested farmhouse in a remote town in France—far from the mansion in Provence they’d originally imagined. Their rickety home is falling down around them, the village is involved in a decades-old trauma, and even the charms of the region’s lavender fields and a budding romance between two of their young neighbors can’t distract from the fact that Freya’s hospital stays are becoming frighteningly frequent. Anna must draw on reserves of strength she never knew she had just to keep going from day to day. But will it be enough to keep her family together—and her daughter safe? Told with “the most pitch-perfect, radiant prose” (New York Times bestselling author Marisa de los Santos), The Mouse-Proof Kitchen is a moving and thought-provoking story about how the best parts of life are often the most complicated.

A heartfelt celebration of family, Punjabi culture and the rag doll-making tradition with a dash of superheroes! Brought to life by debut author, Saira Shah, and vibrant illustrations with real 'POW!' from Maria Gabriela Gama.In a bustling city, there lived a little girl called Yazmin. And in a small village far away, there lived an old lady called Nani. Yazmin was Nani's granddaughter. But the two of them had never, ever met. Yazmin is very excited to meet Nani for the first time. Until they realise getting to know each other is going to be a bit tricky - they don't speak the same language! But with the help of Yazmin's trusty superheroes and a new rag doll, Yazmin and Nani find there are ways for them to talk after all. This touching story encapsulates the communicative power of toys and Saira's storytelling gives voice to challenges faced by many multi-generational and multi-culture families. Paired with Maria's artwork, which represents the unbreakable bond between grandparent and child regardless of distance, this book deserves a place on every bookshelf. Perfect for readers of Julian is a Mermaid, The Proudest Blue and Faruq and the Wiri Wiri.