I am very grateful to Lynn Gaspard at Saqi Books for offering to publish this collection which brings together the first stories I ever wrote –’Coloured Lights’ and ‘The Ostrich’– as well as more recent ones –’The Circle Line’ and ‘Pages of Fruit’.

In reviewing the stories, I was conscious of all who had helped me throughout the years and the debt of gratitude I owe them.

My husband, Nadir Mahjoub, my first reader, has supported and encouraged me without any hesitation, even when I ‘threatened’ many times to give up writing.

I am grateful to the very first Caine Prize judging panel, the chair Ben Okri as well as Veronique Tadjo, William Boyd and the late Professor Alvaro Ribeiro for choosing ‘The Museum’ as the winner. It would not have reached their hands had it not been submitted by the champion of African writing, Becky Nana Ayebia Clarke, to whom I, and many others, owe a great deal.

For feedback on early drafts and for getting me to take writing seriously, I am grateful to Todd McEwen who in the early 1990s was writer-in-residence at Aberdeen Central Library.

Many thanks too to my friend Irene Leake for her creative insight and positivity.

I am grateful to all the editors and the publications in which these stories first appeared:

‘The Museum’ in Opening Spaces edited by Yvonne Vera (Heinemann AWS, 1999)

‘Majed’ in Wasafiri Magazine (2000)

‘Coloured Lights’, ‘Souvenirs’, ‘The Ostrich,’ and ‘The Boy from the Kebab Shop’ in my collection Coloured Lights (Polygon, 2001)

‘Something Old, Something New’ in Scottish Girls About Town (Pocket Books, 2003)

‘Farida’s Eyes’ in Banipal 44 (2012)

‘Summer Maze’ in Jalada Transition, the Fear Issue (2017)

‘The Circle Line’ in Gulf Coast Magazine (2017)

‘Pages of Fruit’ in Freeman’s Home (Grove Press, 2017)

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