Erum Shazia Hasan

“At first, our people back home are mildly interested in the faraway stories of the poor, of child marriages, of the hungry. If we throw terrorism or genital mutilation in there, we’re a real hit, satisfying curiosities, flaunting heroism. But if we delve into the nuances of the pain we see, or our role in fostering it, or if we go on too long about a valley on the outskirts of the capital, they lose interest, and we enter the ranks of the verbose.
My own husband doesn’t care for these haunts of mine. To him, I disappear into a continent he built out of movie scenes and tragic books, with no sights to behold.”
― Erum Shazia Hasan, We Meant Well