Leaves from Kashmir

About the Book

As yet another violent summer comes to a close and the burnt amber leaves of the Chinar are shed, she gathers the scattered leaves of her journal, packs up her bag and leaves her nest…‘Leaves from Kashmir’ traces the trajectory of a young woman’s journey from her native land- Kashmir to Delhi, in a story where prose and poetry intermingle in a lyrical, sensual dance. A moving allegorical account of the struggles she faces as she grapples with the diverse shades of life, death, home, exile, love and longing.

About the Author

Saba Shafi was born in 1987, in the Himalayan valley of Kashmir. A doctor by profession, she followed the traditionally desired path laid out by provincial conformism for a bright and hard working student. Things could have stayed this way if she weren’t born in a paradise that lost its peace just before she had learned how to walk, forcing her to spend her youth confined at home, gobbling down English and American literature to escape, at least in her mind, the immurement she grew up in, urging her at the same time to write. The music of a language that is not her mother tongue, but that she has deeply befriended, has opened a space of possibilities for her, an opportunity to make sense of pain, her own and that of those born in the conflict. Wielding the pen like a scalpel, she meticulously dissects out emotions, baring hearts and reanimating them. The reader will find in this first opus the sincerity and the passion of a voice that, while acknowledging the excruciating trials of existence, still loudly affirms the path of love and life.