By Nabilah Abu Bakar
GOMBAK, 19 October 2015: Aspiring writers from IIUM considered themselves very fortunate to have had an opportunity to meet in person a known writer today to learn from her experience. Â It was a wonderful session entitled “An Evening with British Writer Qaisra Shahraz” organised by the Secretariat of English Language and Literature where the author, a good story teller, shared her experience in novel writing.
Qaisra Shahraz is from Pakistan and has lived in Manchester, England since she was nine. Her first novel, The Holy Woman was published in the United Kingdom in 2002, followed by Typhoon in 2007. Both of the novels have been published in several countries and translated into many other different languages all over the world.
Her first short story entitled A Pair of Jeans published in 1988 was brought up as a literary text and used in German schools for their curriculum syllabus.
In her writing, the main literary genre is about Muslim women who are facing difficulties or challenges in life.
Qaisra Shahraz in her remarks at the talk said, œWomen interests me very much and I find womens life fascinating. At the age of 20, she wrote in one of her short stories that apprised about a young woman in England with multiple identities. She also stated that she chose different theme to do with the women in her novels.
In that beneficial programme, she inspired future writers on the hardship journey to become a novelist.
Qaisra Shahraz explained that new authors might face challenges to publish their stories. In this competitive world, she said, most of the publishers are aiming to make money instead of maintaining the quality of the novels content. It is therefore necessary for the writers to choose what their interests are, but advised against writing for the sake of wanting to seek fame.
œTo those of you, who want to write, never show your piece of work to any publisher unless it is polished, she advised aspiring writers.
She said that it is very important for the writers to polish their work before submitting it to the publisher. Other than that, she stressed on the most important characteristics writers should have; that is discipline and commitment.
At the end of the programme, Qaisra Shahraz read to the audiences an abstract of her novel, Revolt (from chapter 43), which narrated a story about a mother with her extremist son.
The book signing event took place after that since the touring author wasn’t just promoting her book but she was also in IIUM taking time to meet with her fans to sign her books.***