This Piece has been published by the Web admin for this site…, but is written by Dr Liesel Hermes, Rector of the University of Education Karlsruhe
I first came across the name of Qaisra Shahraz when I bought the anthology Holding Out (Crocus 1988) in London in 1988 and read her short story “A Pair of Jeans”. The story caught my attention because I found the topic, a young Muslim woman in England who is torn between Western values and her loyalty to her family and her ethnic background with its very different attitudes and value system, highly interesting for German students of English, both at school and University level. Teaching it successfully at my University of Education I found that it met with very favourable response and gave rise to lively discussions. Since I was somewhat unhappy with the in my eyes negative and somewhat defeatist ending, I got in touch with Qaisra. She invited me to come to Manchester which I did in the same year that I included her story in my anthology Writing Women; Twentieth Century Short Stories (Cornelsen 1991), which contained eight short stories by English female writers and was designed for senior German high school students.
My visit to Qaisra and her extended family in 1991 was a very memorable experience, not only since I was introduced to her parents and her brothers and sister with their respective families, but also because I experienced her warmth, graciousness and overwhelming hospitality. No wonder that we discussed her story extensively. When I pointed out my feelings about the ending she suggested that she would write another ending to the story which I was able to include in my anthology, thus giving students even more food for thought and topics to discuss.
This short story proved to be a hit, because it was not only included in other anthologies in Germany, but also became part of a literature syllabus of short stories which high school students in my home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg had to study for their graduation exam, and was thus published in several school editions.
Incidentally Qaisra’s story “The Elopement”, which I had come across in the anthology Black and Priceless (Crocus 1988), at my suggestion immediately made its way into an extensive anthology of English and American literary texts for senior high school students, which I co-published together with two other editors: Invitation to Literature (Cornelsen 1989).
When German teachers of English learnt that Qaisra was willing to do in-service teacher training courses on her stories as well as on intercultural topics they started inviting her to schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg, and she has become a well-known and well-loved figure not only in German schools, but also in Universities of Education. Teachers found her way to speak about her own background and writing engaging and stimulating and she has visited Germany on a more or less regular basis. And when she was in the vicinity of my home town we also tried to see each other.
Today it seems remarkable to me that we have known each other for 23 years and never lost touch. I have witnessed a young woman grow into an internationally acclaimed and respected author who moved beyond story writing to try her hand on highly ambitious novels, The Holy Woman (2001) and Typhoon (2003), which again won international acclaim, and I felt gratified when she invited me to contribute to the first monograph about her literary output, the Holy and the Unholy, Critical Essays on Qaisra Shahraz’s Fiction (2011).
Although she has spent most of her life in England and works professionally as an education consultant and college inspector I perceive her to be living in both worlds, the English or European as well as the Pakistani Muslim world. Her short stories may therefore be set in either England or Pakistan, but she peoples them invariably with characters of Pakistani background or origin like Noor in “Zemindar’s Wife”, the disillusioned village elder in “The City Dwellers” and Samir in “Escape” lost between his two worlds of Manchester and Lahore. Thus European readers may feel alienated when they are confronted with very traditional settings in Pakistan, as is the case with some of the stories in the present collection, “The Perchanvah”, “The Zemindar’s Wife”, “The City Dwellers” and “Escape”. They may feel at a loss what to do with a strictly stratified hierarchical society, with formally regulated encounters, even within one family, and with the term “modesty” playing an important role especially for the female characters Of Miriam in “A Pair of Jeans” and Rubiya in “Discovery”. But at the bottom is invariably the wish to come to a basic understanding, even if some of the values and attitudes and some character traits may strike European readers as being rooted in a world that remains somewhat of a mystery to them. A feeling of alienation in European readers may also result from the fact that Urdu words and expressions and Muslim greeting formulae occur in all her works.
I regard Qaisra as an author who is loyal to her faith and at the same time tries to bring home her values to readers of different backgrounds and different faiths, to bridge two worlds, so to speak. She never preaches, but she opens doors and makes us see new and unfamiliar worlds and unexpected characters who invite our response. And I am happy that we have been friends for such a long time.
Readers who would like to learn more about her personal life and her artistic aspirations should read her interview with Sami Rafiq in The Holy and the Unholy, pp. xxiii-xxxviii
Dr. Liesel Hermes, Karlsruhe, Germany.
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