Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi has published essays, reviews, short stories, poetry, monologues, and translations, and has also written for radio and for the stage. She was contributing editor for the Serial podcast the Trojan Horse Affair, and her debut novel, The Centre, about a Pakistani translator living in London, is published by Picador (UK) and Zando (US). She’s on X @tweetingayesha.
Poetry (translation)
I’m Always Killed
Here, kingdoms are usurped
Here, monarchs defeated
I mulled over the first line, considered ‘chessboard’, ‘checkerboard’, or simply ‘the spread of life,’ as the analogy is clearer in the Urdu…
Translation of Fainaana Farnam’s Testimony
Jaun Elia: The Other Side of the Picture
It has been nineteen years today since Abbu’s devotees lost him. But I’d lost him years and years before then.