Jasmine Days
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Young Radio Jockey Sameera Parvin from Pakistan moves to an unnamed city in the Middle East to live with her father and her relatives. Sameera thrives in her job as a radio jockey and at home is the darling of her family, but her happy world starts to fall apart when revolution occurs in the country. As the people’s agitation gathers strength, Sameera finds herself and her family embroiled in the politics of their adopted land. She is forced to choose between family and friends, loyalty and love, life and death.
Jasmine Days is the heart-rending story of a young woman in a city where the promise of revolution turns into destruction and division.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Shahnaz
Habib
Shahnaz Habib is the author of the nonfiction book Airplane Mode (Catapault Books), and the translator of the novel Jasmine Days, for which she and the author Benyamin won the JCB Prize, India’s most valuable prize for literature. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker online, Creative Nonfiction, Agni, Brevity, The Guardian, and Afar. She has been awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature, and her work has been cited in the Best American Essays series. She holds a BA from Mahatma Gandhi University, an MA in English Literature from the University of Delhi, and an MA in Media Studies from the New School.
Shahnaz Habib is the author of the nonfiction book Airplane Mode (Catapault Books), and the translator of the novel Jasmine Days, for which she and the author Benyamin won the JCB Prize, India’s most valuable prize for literature. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker online, Creative Nonfiction, Agni, Brevity, The Guardian, and Afar. She has been awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature, and her work has been cited in the Best American Essays series. She holds a BA from Mahatma Gandhi University, an MA in English Literature from the University of Delhi, and an MA in Media Studies from the New School.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
The novel tells the story of Sameera Pravia, a young pakistani woman who works as a radio jockey in an unnamed middle eastern country which is on the verge of revolution. The plot is a down to earth characterization of the protagonist. The art of story telling is distinct and keeps one engaged until the end. Written very intelligently, it tells the lives of foreign workers in the middle east. India International Centre Library, India