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The World With Its Mouth Open: Stories
“An utterly exquisite debut.”—Emily Fridlund, History of Wolves
In eleven stories, The World With Its Mouth Open follows the inner lives of the people of Kashmir as they walk the uncertain terrain of their days, fractured from years of war. From a shopkeeper’s encounter with a mannequin, to an expectant mother walking on a precarious road, to a young boy wavering between dreams and reality, to two dogs wandering the city, these stories weave in larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways. Although the stories circle the darker aspects of life, they are—at the same time—an attempt to run into life, into humor, into beauty, into another person who can offer refuge, if momentarily.Zahid Rafiq’s The World With Its Mouth Open is an original and powerful debut collection announcing the arrival of a new voice that bears witness to the human condition with nuance, heart, humor, and incredible insight.
In eleven stories, The World With Its Mouth Open follows the inner lives of the people of Kashmir as they walk the uncertain terrain of their days, fractured from years of war. From a shopkeeper’s encounter with a mannequin, to an expectant mother walking on a precarious road, to a young boy wavering between dreams and reality, to two dogs wandering the city, these stories weave in larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways. Although the stories circle the darker aspects of life, they are—at the same time—an attempt to run into life, into humor, into beauty, into another person who can offer refuge, if momentarily.Zahid Rafiq’s The World With Its Mouth Open is an original and powerful debut collection announcing the arrival of a new voice that bears witness to the human condition with nuance, heart, humor, and incredible insight.
192 pages, Paperback
First published December 3, 2024
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April 14, 2025
Haunting. The devastation of occupation and war is implied like a distant sound that you are not sure is gunfire.
January 17, 2026
Bordering the states of India and Pakistan and occupied, in parts, by both, the Kashmir valley is one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world. Popular discourse considers the region in flattened terms, either through the lens of geopolitical conflict or the romanticised notion of verdant plains and snow-capped mountains popularised by colonial travelogues and Bollywood movies. The conditions and aspirations of its 7 million citizens are usually ignored and, by design, brutally suppressed.
This debut collection from the Srinagar-based ex-journalist Zahid Rafiq invites us to bear witness to the everyday lives of those living in the valley today. It is a startlingly humane view from the inside, enriched by dialogue in the cadence of the native Koshur language and bereft of any topological descriptions of the kind favoured by tourists and occupiers.
Though the occupation and its mechanics are never explicitly named or relayed, each of these 11 stories shows us the myriad ways in which the fear and paranoia fermented over decades impinges on even the most quotidian aspects of local society and culture. "The Bridge" follows a pregnant woman who is briefly united with a childhood acquaintance, only for him to disappear into thin air; "Crows" explores how the violence and anxieties of poverty, illiteracy and political debasement forge a misshapen childhood. A severed hand discovered at a building site sparks consternation in "The House," while a false obituary sets off a tragic cycle of mistrust in "In Small Boxes." Elsewhere, a shopkeeper sees mourning in the inanimate face of a mannequin, and the dead and disappeared haunt the living, altering the burden of their days. Every story is a slice-of-live narrative burrowing into the ambiguity and ever-present grief that presides over Kashmiri people, with vague, unsatisfying endings that mirror their precarity, their cynicism, and their larger incapacity to imagine a secure future as both individuals and a collective.
Rafiq writes with incredible restraint, nesting brilliant observations into the barest of sentences. I took a sharp breath when reading about a child learning how "anything below the throat is chest in a woman,' and deeper still when brought to the following lines from "Dogs":
I liked a lot of these stories and was unsettled by most of them. It would be interesting to see how the author might engage with his subject in a longer form, so i'm keeping two fingers crossed and an eye out for a novel in the future.
This debut collection from the Srinagar-based ex-journalist Zahid Rafiq invites us to bear witness to the everyday lives of those living in the valley today. It is a startlingly humane view from the inside, enriched by dialogue in the cadence of the native Koshur language and bereft of any topological descriptions of the kind favoured by tourists and occupiers.
Though the occupation and its mechanics are never explicitly named or relayed, each of these 11 stories shows us the myriad ways in which the fear and paranoia fermented over decades impinges on even the most quotidian aspects of local society and culture. "The Bridge" follows a pregnant woman who is briefly united with a childhood acquaintance, only for him to disappear into thin air; "Crows" explores how the violence and anxieties of poverty, illiteracy and political debasement forge a misshapen childhood. A severed hand discovered at a building site sparks consternation in "The House," while a false obituary sets off a tragic cycle of mistrust in "In Small Boxes." Elsewhere, a shopkeeper sees mourning in the inanimate face of a mannequin, and the dead and disappeared haunt the living, altering the burden of their days. Every story is a slice-of-live narrative burrowing into the ambiguity and ever-present grief that presides over Kashmiri people, with vague, unsatisfying endings that mirror their precarity, their cynicism, and their larger incapacity to imagine a secure future as both individuals and a collective.
Rafiq writes with incredible restraint, nesting brilliant observations into the barest of sentences. I took a sharp breath when reading about a child learning how "anything below the throat is chest in a woman,' and deeper still when brought to the following lines from "Dogs":
Do you think everyone dies the same way? You don’t still think it is those wretched hiccups and the closing of eyes … if only dying were so easy.I also understood the repetition of certain motifs, such as various characters wearing shirts and pherans of a checkered fabric – popular in the region – as an underlining of local culture while avoiding stereotypes. I did sometimes find myself taken out of the occasional odd phrase, like a slice of juicy orange 'shattering' in a character's mouth, but this could well be intentional in translating speech from Koshur to English or in perhaps creating sonoric resonances with the beseiged landscape.
I liked a lot of these stories and was unsettled by most of them. It would be interesting to see how the author might engage with his subject in a longer form, so i'm keeping two fingers crossed and an eye out for a novel in the future.
January 19, 2025
Review by Julia Romero, Book Reviewer at October Hill Magazine
The World With Its Mouth Open: Stories by Zahid Rafiq is a sophisticated and haunting debut collection set in a splintering Kashmir—the author’s residence. The eleven short stories evoke a true sense of place and time. When I closed the book, I felt I’d spent a day walking around the city, familiarizing myself with the contours. The stories are immersive, open, and well crafted. The characters in The World With Its Mouth Open are people you’d pass on the street—businessmen, homeowners, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers, children. We catch snapshots of their days as mini calamities upend their lives.
A soon-to-be mother reunites with a childhood friend only to find he’s disappeared soon after. A young mason is shaken when he finds the skeleton of a human hand underneath the foundations of his employer’s home. A shopkeeper grows disturbed by the tormented face of his new mannequin.
Rafiq’s reverence for language is clear from the first page. Some of the sentences are truly outstanding—a suckerpunch of emotion, but still withheld...
Read the rest of the review in October Hill Magazine's Winter 2024 Issue
The World With Its Mouth Open: Stories by Zahid Rafiq is a sophisticated and haunting debut collection set in a splintering Kashmir—the author’s residence. The eleven short stories evoke a true sense of place and time. When I closed the book, I felt I’d spent a day walking around the city, familiarizing myself with the contours. The stories are immersive, open, and well crafted. The characters in The World With Its Mouth Open are people you’d pass on the street—businessmen, homeowners, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers, children. We catch snapshots of their days as mini calamities upend their lives.
A soon-to-be mother reunites with a childhood friend only to find he’s disappeared soon after. A young mason is shaken when he finds the skeleton of a human hand underneath the foundations of his employer’s home. A shopkeeper grows disturbed by the tormented face of his new mannequin.
Rafiq’s reverence for language is clear from the first page. Some of the sentences are truly outstanding—a suckerpunch of emotion, but still withheld...
Read the rest of the review in October Hill Magazine's Winter 2024 Issue
January 25, 2025
I read 9 out of the 11 stories, but I found the book underwhelming and felt it didn’t offer much to the reader. The stories failed to captivate me and didn’t quite reflect the slice-of-life essence I was expecting—they felt like something else entirely. While the book included many elements that only a local Kashmiri might fully understand, this didn’t add much value for me as a reader.
January 3, 2025
i liked many of these!
November 29, 2025
strange and beautiful and terrible and captures the mundane terror of everyday lives during war and conflict
January 9, 2025
In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices debut story collection focussing on the lives of ordinary citizens in Kashmir. Good stories, but none made me go “Wow!” in any way. Barebones in description but great in character sketches. Slice of life in every way, so if this writing style doesn’t work for you, the book might not.
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This debut collection of eleven stories focusses on the lives of ordinary people in Kashmir, a conflicted territory ever since the Indo-Pak partition with both nations fighting over its “ownership”. Most stories that are set in this region focus on terrorism, soldier brutalities, religious discrimination, or rebellion. This book is one of the rare ones that focusses only on common people and common problems without forcing in aggression and uncertainty into every scene. As the author is from Srinagar (the summer capital of Kashmir), I had been looking forward to getting a genuine glimpse of Kashmiri lives without getting more of the same religious/political agenda.
Does the book deliver? Well, the results are mixed for various reasons.
There is no author’s note, but the blurb states the stories to be weaving in “larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways.” This is a somewhat ambitious declaration, methinks.
The location should have been the primary factor in this collection. However, in focusing on the “ordinary”, the focus is so removed from the setting that most of the stories could have been based anywhere. There is absolutely nothing about the place, be it the scenery or the weather or the lifestyle or the insurgency. Barring a few passing mentions of soldiers or guns in a couple of the stories, there is nothing to suggest that the location is under strife. In fact, the writing is so generic that the same stories could have been transposed to any contentious location anywhere in the world without any edits. This was a big disappointment to me; while I did want an agenda-free book, I didn’t want a Kashmir-free book. But I just didn’t *feel* Kashmir herein.
The writing style is clearly slice-of-life, with each story focussing on an event in the life of the primary character rather than having a neat start-middle-end progression. Slice of life is a hit-or-miss style with me, with my satisfaction heavily dependent on how the stories phase out. In this collection, most stories didn’t offer me a satisfying closure. They are not complete, and not even abrupt or open-ended; there’s just the end of a scene and then nothing! I felt like I was watching a play where the curtains came down before the final act. In most cases, I was left wondering about the point of the story.
The content is quite character-oriented, as is common with slice-of-life. But the characters do uphold the strength of the book. Each character (whenever human; one story has only dogs as characters) is a relatable person, with hopes and struggles we can identify with even though we don’t live under similar circumstances. The challenges they face are from routine life and nothing to do with the political turmoil. This aspect was a plus for me.
As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the eleven entries, most earned 3-3.5 stars from me. If I had enjoyed the slice-of-life writing style more, some of these might have earned more points. But the main reason for my lower satisfaction was not the writing but the endings. The only two stories that went to 4 stars were ‘Flowers From a Dog‘ and ‘The Mannequin‘, both poignant tales of regret and yet quite dissimilar from each other in tone and impact.
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend this as a story collection showing you the true Kashmir. But I would certainly recommend it as an OwnVoices work showing you how humans take solace in the ordinary even in darker times. It would help if you enjoy slice-of-life writing and character-oriented storytelling.
3 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each tale.
My thanks to Tin House for providing the DRC of “The World With Its Mouth Open” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
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Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || X/Twitter || Facebook ||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This debut collection of eleven stories focusses on the lives of ordinary people in Kashmir, a conflicted territory ever since the Indo-Pak partition with both nations fighting over its “ownership”. Most stories that are set in this region focus on terrorism, soldier brutalities, religious discrimination, or rebellion. This book is one of the rare ones that focusses only on common people and common problems without forcing in aggression and uncertainty into every scene. As the author is from Srinagar (the summer capital of Kashmir), I had been looking forward to getting a genuine glimpse of Kashmiri lives without getting more of the same religious/political agenda.
Does the book deliver? Well, the results are mixed for various reasons.
There is no author’s note, but the blurb states the stories to be weaving in “larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways.” This is a somewhat ambitious declaration, methinks.
The location should have been the primary factor in this collection. However, in focusing on the “ordinary”, the focus is so removed from the setting that most of the stories could have been based anywhere. There is absolutely nothing about the place, be it the scenery or the weather or the lifestyle or the insurgency. Barring a few passing mentions of soldiers or guns in a couple of the stories, there is nothing to suggest that the location is under strife. In fact, the writing is so generic that the same stories could have been transposed to any contentious location anywhere in the world without any edits. This was a big disappointment to me; while I did want an agenda-free book, I didn’t want a Kashmir-free book. But I just didn’t *feel* Kashmir herein.
The writing style is clearly slice-of-life, with each story focussing on an event in the life of the primary character rather than having a neat start-middle-end progression. Slice of life is a hit-or-miss style with me, with my satisfaction heavily dependent on how the stories phase out. In this collection, most stories didn’t offer me a satisfying closure. They are not complete, and not even abrupt or open-ended; there’s just the end of a scene and then nothing! I felt like I was watching a play where the curtains came down before the final act. In most cases, I was left wondering about the point of the story.
The content is quite character-oriented, as is common with slice-of-life. But the characters do uphold the strength of the book. Each character (whenever human; one story has only dogs as characters) is a relatable person, with hopes and struggles we can identify with even though we don’t live under similar circumstances. The challenges they face are from routine life and nothing to do with the political turmoil. This aspect was a plus for me.
As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the eleven entries, most earned 3-3.5 stars from me. If I had enjoyed the slice-of-life writing style more, some of these might have earned more points. But the main reason for my lower satisfaction was not the writing but the endings. The only two stories that went to 4 stars were ‘Flowers From a Dog‘ and ‘The Mannequin‘, both poignant tales of regret and yet quite dissimilar from each other in tone and impact.
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend this as a story collection showing you the true Kashmir. But I would certainly recommend it as an OwnVoices work showing you how humans take solace in the ordinary even in darker times. It would help if you enjoy slice-of-life writing and character-oriented storytelling.
3 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each tale.
My thanks to Tin House for providing the DRC of “The World With Its Mouth Open” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || X/Twitter || Facebook ||
March 16, 2025
“War is a thousand plagues put together, picking the young, leaving the old to bury them.”
The book presents a mundane and realistic depiction of how Kashmir has become a low-trust society with people turning on each other with the slightest inconveniences and how tortured and paranoid they really are as they keep drowning in their fears in this world that has only been hostile to them. All of this sheds some light on how generational trauma and war change the dynamics of society and cripple it. Reading this book was cathartic in a sense.
An underlying sense of hopelessness is ever present in every story even if you are not looking for it. Their lives are absurd and they never end on a good note. Human beings are reduced to animals, stripped of everything that they ever held dear to themselves, their educations, jobs, hobbies, culture, freedom, everything is at stake. It's a big nightmare that they have been trying to wake up from but can never seem to do so.
It's interesting and sad to see how trivial incidents are fueled by the general sense of paranoia that is ever present among the common people. No problem is small anymore. As soon as you start judging the decision of the characters, the book reminds you that it really is a life and death situation for people who are living under the influence of fear all the time. Everything looks okay but it is far from normal. This suffering isn’t class conscious of course, but the poor ones are obviously more affected than their rich counterparts.
Surprisingly, being the author’s first book, it provides a different and realistic perspective which is usually buried by the media because it never sells and is never headline worthy. And the author being a journalist himself gives the book even more credibility and depth in my opinion. I can safely recommend this book to a lot of people. I feel like it does a great job of humanizing and empathizing with the people of Kashmir and their daily struggles, both of which are missing from the equation we are usually presented with.
The book presents a mundane and realistic depiction of how Kashmir has become a low-trust society with people turning on each other with the slightest inconveniences and how tortured and paranoid they really are as they keep drowning in their fears in this world that has only been hostile to them. All of this sheds some light on how generational trauma and war change the dynamics of society and cripple it. Reading this book was cathartic in a sense.
An underlying sense of hopelessness is ever present in every story even if you are not looking for it. Their lives are absurd and they never end on a good note. Human beings are reduced to animals, stripped of everything that they ever held dear to themselves, their educations, jobs, hobbies, culture, freedom, everything is at stake. It's a big nightmare that they have been trying to wake up from but can never seem to do so.
It's interesting and sad to see how trivial incidents are fueled by the general sense of paranoia that is ever present among the common people. No problem is small anymore. As soon as you start judging the decision of the characters, the book reminds you that it really is a life and death situation for people who are living under the influence of fear all the time. Everything looks okay but it is far from normal. This suffering isn’t class conscious of course, but the poor ones are obviously more affected than their rich counterparts.
Surprisingly, being the author’s first book, it provides a different and realistic perspective which is usually buried by the media because it never sells and is never headline worthy. And the author being a journalist himself gives the book even more credibility and depth in my opinion. I can safely recommend this book to a lot of people. I feel like it does a great job of humanizing and empathizing with the people of Kashmir and their daily struggles, both of which are missing from the equation we are usually presented with.
May 29, 2025
2.5 stars rounded up. This collection was well written but it just wasn't for me. All these stories are basically slice-of-life narrations without a real point and with no real ending. It gives all of them a vaguely unsettling feeling where I kept thinking I missed something, or waiting for something to happen that never did. I just prefer some more substance in short stories.
The Bridge - a pregnant woman meets and old friend's brother, and then he suddenly disappears and she can't find him again.
Crows - kid fails his test at school and is scared of his teacher's and parents' reactions. This one I liked.
In Small Boxes - a journalist goes to visit an older guy who runs an antique store, until the latter's death.
Bare Feet - in a military-controlled city, a guy sees a ghost and goes with his friend to visit the ghost's family.
Beauty - teenage boys spy on a neighbor girl they're in love with/obsessed with
Flowers From a Dog - guy visits his ex's grave
The House - guy finds a human hand while digging to expand his property
Dogs - street dogs talk about life
The Man with the Suitcase - guy looking for work after his brother's death
The Mannequin - guy who buys a mannequin for his store but doesn't want it because it's so sad-looking
Frog in the Mouth - unceasing monologue from a very talkative person in a restaurant. This one was also kind of fun, even though it was pointless
The Bridge - a pregnant woman meets and old friend's brother, and then he suddenly disappears and she can't find him again.
Crows - kid fails his test at school and is scared of his teacher's and parents' reactions. This one I liked.
In Small Boxes - a journalist goes to visit an older guy who runs an antique store, until the latter's death.
Bare Feet - in a military-controlled city, a guy sees a ghost and goes with his friend to visit the ghost's family.
Beauty - teenage boys spy on a neighbor girl they're in love with/obsessed with
Flowers From a Dog - guy visits his ex's grave
The House - guy finds a human hand while digging to expand his property
Dogs - street dogs talk about life
The Man with the Suitcase - guy looking for work after his brother's death
The Mannequin - guy who buys a mannequin for his store but doesn't want it because it's so sad-looking
Frog in the Mouth - unceasing monologue from a very talkative person in a restaurant. This one was also kind of fun, even though it was pointless
March 30, 2025
The author Rafiq lives in Srinagar, a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region which holds civil unrest as a way of life. Violence between the Kashmiris, predominantly Muslim, and the Indian security forces, Hindus, is a frequent occurrence. And all of that is the setting for this collection of eleven stories.
But without needing to include explanations of the context of his stories, Rafiq tells vignettes of life in an unnamed city in Kashmir. His stories are not woven around some sort of moral lesson. Each story sits as its own glimpse of life. Although his stories hold references to the violent, unsettled region, Rafiq has chosen to stay away from backgrounding those references. And those are reasons I liked this book.
I like to read literature from around the world. This was the first of anything I’ve read from Srinigar. For that reason, reading this book was an original experience. Additionally, for me, there was a sense of originality, in a literary sense, in these stories.
At the front of his book, Rafiq gives us words of Franz Kafka: "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense." And that's Zahid Rafiq's stories. Genuine humanity in a complex, crazy corner of the world.
But without needing to include explanations of the context of his stories, Rafiq tells vignettes of life in an unnamed city in Kashmir. His stories are not woven around some sort of moral lesson. Each story sits as its own glimpse of life. Although his stories hold references to the violent, unsettled region, Rafiq has chosen to stay away from backgrounding those references. And those are reasons I liked this book.
I like to read literature from around the world. This was the first of anything I’ve read from Srinigar. For that reason, reading this book was an original experience. Additionally, for me, there was a sense of originality, in a literary sense, in these stories.
At the front of his book, Rafiq gives us words of Franz Kafka: "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense." And that's Zahid Rafiq's stories. Genuine humanity in a complex, crazy corner of the world.
August 9, 2025
The World With Its Mouth Open by Zahid Rafiq was an interesting read. Rafiq is a Kashmiri, and all the short stories are set in the valley.
Unlike most books set in Kashmir, these tales are not about terrorism and insurgency but, instead, present a slice of everyday Kashmiri life. There is a sad sense of despondency through the stories. The book left me confused because while it spoke to me, I cannot say I particularly enjoyed it; maybe it was because I didn't care much for the writing. Nonetheless, the fact that all the protagonists have an almost banal acceptance of their miserable fates is almost more heartbreaking than a story of a terrorist's atrocity. While the book won't make you cry, there was such little joy through the book it'll certainly leave you very, very sad.
Unlike most books set in Kashmir, these tales are not about terrorism and insurgency but, instead, present a slice of everyday Kashmiri life. There is a sad sense of despondency through the stories. The book left me confused because while it spoke to me, I cannot say I particularly enjoyed it; maybe it was because I didn't care much for the writing. Nonetheless, the fact that all the protagonists have an almost banal acceptance of their miserable fates is almost more heartbreaking than a story of a terrorist's atrocity. While the book won't make you cry, there was such little joy through the book it'll certainly leave you very, very sad.
October 31, 2024
I received The World With Its Mouth Open: Stories by Zahid Rafiq from a Goodreads giveaway. Expected publication date: December 3, 2024.
The World With Its Mouth Open: Stories is slice of life short stories set in Kashmir. This is well-written and engaging. Be aware, the literary definition of slice of life is taken very seriously in this collection. From the Wikipedia page "A work that focuses on a minute and faithful reproduction of some bit of reality, without selection, organization, or judgment, and where every small detail is presented with scientific fidelity". If you are not into that, you probably won't like this.
The World With Its Mouth Open: Stories is slice of life short stories set in Kashmir. This is well-written and engaging. Be aware, the literary definition of slice of life is taken very seriously in this collection. From the Wikipedia page "A work that focuses on a minute and faithful reproduction of some bit of reality, without selection, organization, or judgment, and where every small detail is presented with scientific fidelity". If you are not into that, you probably won't like this.
October 2, 2025
what i liked:
-although this was about Kashmir, this wasn't about terrorism or war; it was about people's lives, which i appreciated.
-the author definitely captured an atmosphere and place
what i didnt like:
-the writing was a bit tedious, sort of repetitive in a way i didnt find all that easy to connect with
-the stories themselves often felt a little pointless, more like they were impressions of the place and people without a ton of plot.
overall i found this to be fine. i liked walking around this place with the people, but i didn't enjoy wandering through their lives. i wanted a bit more STORY in the stories. 2.5.
-although this was about Kashmir, this wasn't about terrorism or war; it was about people's lives, which i appreciated.
-the author definitely captured an atmosphere and place
what i didnt like:
-the writing was a bit tedious, sort of repetitive in a way i didnt find all that easy to connect with
-the stories themselves often felt a little pointless, more like they were impressions of the place and people without a ton of plot.
overall i found this to be fine. i liked walking around this place with the people, but i didn't enjoy wandering through their lives. i wanted a bit more STORY in the stories. 2.5.
July 1, 2025
These stories were interesting enough to keep my attention, some more than others, but they all left me feeling unresolved in a way. I'm assuming it's intentional, things don't often tie themselves in neat little bows, especially when it's stories of a place and people in turmoil. I just had a hard time fully connecting to the stories, maybe because I don't often read short stories... not bad by any means though.
July 5, 2025
an achievement for any short story collection to have more than three *fantastic* stories, and even more impressive when it's a debut collection 👏 big thank you to feryal who recommended this book; fully agree with her best story picks (Crows, In Small Boxes, Beauty, and Frog in the Mouth but also shout out to The Bridge and Flowers from a Dog which are hitting especially hard for me, at this moment in time :')) that's SIX fantastic stories ^_^
November 15, 2024
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this collection. All of the stories have unsatisfying endings, which on its own could be okay, but in this instance I found annoying. I did not really understand the point this book was trying to make. All of the stories are very slice of life but I do not see the through line connecting them.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this collection. All of the stories have unsatisfying endings, which on its own could be okay, but in this instance I found annoying. I did not really understand the point this book was trying to make. All of the stories are very slice of life but I do not see the through line connecting them.
December 12, 2024
The December Otherppl Book Club selection.
Terrific collection of short stories. Rafiq is an incredible writer who crafts beautiful sentences. The stories are definitely not for folks who like tidy endings as they pretty much all end without any sort of denouement. Still a really enjoyable set of stories.
Terrific collection of short stories. Rafiq is an incredible writer who crafts beautiful sentences. The stories are definitely not for folks who like tidy endings as they pretty much all end without any sort of denouement. Still a really enjoyable set of stories.
March 1, 2025
It probably isn't fair to give it only two stars as his writing is excellent. I guess I'm not that into short stories. I wanted the stories to have more of an arc and plot. His writing is very descriptive and it is a bit disturbing if you know little about the part of the world where his stories take place. I would be interested to see what a full length novel would be like by Mr. Rafiq.
August 5, 2025
This is a fine collection of short fiction. Though the subject matter is ordinary, every-day life, there's an ominous feel to these tales. It seems that any day may be the last for some of these characters.
My favorite story concerned a man who finds his life changed in unexpected ways after his erroneously reported obituary.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House Books for sharing.
My favorite story concerned a man who finds his life changed in unexpected ways after his erroneously reported obituary.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House Books for sharing.
January 3, 2026
Captivating and unsettling, Rafiq takes the mundane every day tasks of life and twists them into something intriguing. That being said, I found myself vacillitating between enjoying a story immensely to not really caring for it. For being short stories, I understand the intention is to depict a “slice of life” scenario, but they failed to read as succint enough to warrant that.
January 18, 2026
This book is not for everyone.
The stories aren't typical stories.
Because there is no drama, twists, or even a climax. They are just observations.
When you finish the book it might seem underwhelming. But when you reflect on it, you'll realise the depth in these observations.
Zahid Rafiq is an interesting writer and I will read his next book, if it is a novel.
The stories aren't typical stories.
Because there is no drama, twists, or even a climax. They are just observations.
When you finish the book it might seem underwhelming. But when you reflect on it, you'll realise the depth in these observations.
Zahid Rafiq is an interesting writer and I will read his next book, if it is a novel.
May 21, 2025
The title of the book was my favorite line in the entire story series so nice work for that. It’s always a pleasure to read something by an author so far away and see, despite all that, the similarities in thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I also enjoyed the story about the dogs.
June 3, 2025
Zahid Rafiq’s The World with Its Mouth Open is a haunting collection of short stories—quietly devastating, and lingering long after each one ends. As a Kashmiri woman reading this book, I was struck by how familiar it felt—not in the sense of recognition, but in the deeper sense of being seen. He captures the psychological climate of the present with a lightness of touch that only comes from deep proximity to the ground. The stories are inward-looking—not in retreat, but in resistance to a gaze that has too often demanded that Kashmir explain itself. It is steeped in the texture of lived experience—conversations overheard, grief absorbed, love stilled by fatigue. For a Kashmiri reader, I feel this is a book that does not ask you to translate yourself.
October 24, 2024
Short stories set in Kashmir about everyday people - shopkeepers, young boys, families.
November 4, 2024
A collection of short stories with a light and delicate touch, slice of live characterization in Kashmir.
Want to read
December 1, 2024h/t npr = stories about daily life in Kashmir.
December 31, 2024
Solid debut. The range was great and there was a real sense of place.
Read
February 2, 2025The undercurrent of dread is palpable.
February 20, 2025
Uneven writing - the prose and imagery are lovely, but for most of them you're left wondering ... "So what?"
March 28, 2025
Collection of short stories which delves deep into the lives and anecdotes of people of Kashmir.....
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