The poets I quote are not.

Aamer Hussein

London, October 2010

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lynn Gaspard at Telegram, Bruno Lo Turco (my Italian editor and translator), and Dalu Jones for ideas that made a story, ‘The Grammar of Grief’, into this book; Shikha Sethi, my editor, for her interest and encouragement; Shirley Chew for publishing a chapter in Moving Worlds; Joseph Olshan for reading an early draft; Peter Middleton and Tabish Khair for responses to a later one; Bina Shah and Nada Raza for being there from the start; and Alev Adil for an illuminating reading of Mehran’s character as I wrote him.

Most of the translations in the book are my own, but I have been aided in a couple of places by I.I. and Elsa Kazi’s and Anne-Marie Schimmel’s work on Shah Abdul Latif, and Ralph Russell on Mir. Finally, Urdu Literature by C.S. Shackle, David Matthews and Shahrukh Husain served to remind me of what I might have forgotten.

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Aamer Hussein

ANOTHER GULMOHAR TREE

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Europe and South Asia 2010

Usman is visiting post-war London from Pakistan when he meets a young aspiring artist, Lydia, who has, like himself, come out of an unhappy marriage. Just as the lonely strangers’ friendship begins to blossom into something deeper, Usman has to return to Karachi, leaving Lydia behind.

Two years later, Lydia impulsively abandons her life in London and boards a ship to Karachi, where the two are married. But as the years flit by, Usman feels distanced from his life and realises that he hasn’t noticed the buds of the gulmohar tree unfurl.

‘Aamer Hussein has the rare gift of expressing enduring and radiant happiness.’ Independent

‘Hussein vibrantly evokes the Karachi of the 1950s and 60s in an affectionate tribute to a long marriage.’ Guardian

‘Quiet voices sometimes find it difficult to be heard. Hussein gives great pleasure to those who listen carefully’ Daily Telegraph

‘Framed in distilled prose, this is a moving fable about the slow and sometimes startling growth of love. A slender delight.’ Financial Times

www.telegrambooks.com

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Aamer Hussein

INSOMNIA

An elusive Japanese girl leads a teenage boy into a world of passion and conflict; in Andalusia, a man talks to his friend about longing and belonging; a translator finds himself drawn into the personal and political turmoil of the poet he translates; and a woman’s quiet world is eroded by the onset of war and the movement for independence. Moving from Karachi to England, through India, Java, Italy and Spain, these exquisite stories engage with the grand narratives of our time.

‘Profound but low key; spiritual, but pragmatic; full of longing, but also acceptance … These stories feel like the work of an outsider – subtle expressions of alienation in which characters are frequently misunderstood, rarely heard and never feel a sense of belonging.’ Independent on Sunday