Thursday, September 18, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Sorayya Khan Reading
The Institute for the Humanities
Lower Level Stevenson Hall
701 South Morgan
University of Illinois at Chicago
See map at bottom for directions/parking; please call 312-399-2896 if lost.

DesiLit and the UIC English Department are pleased to present Pakistani-American author Sorayya Khan, a novelist who was born in Europe and moved to Islamabad in 1972 with her parents. Her story, "In the Shadows of the Margalla Hills," won the 1995 Malahat Review First Novella prize. The daughter of a Pakistani father and Dutch mother, the idea of the world's interconnectedness is central to her novels NOOR (Alhamra, 2003) and FIVE QUEEN'S ROAD (Penguin, 2008).

Khan will be reading "Staying," from the new anthology AND THE WORLD CHANGED: CONTEMPORARY STORIES BY PAKISTANI WOMEN. "Staying" is an extract from FIVE QUEEN'S ROAD. In a novel that weaves together family saga and national history, FIVE QUEEN'S ROAD follows the stories of Dina Lal, an accidental Hindu landlord, and Amir Shah's family, his Muslim tenants, in a house surrendered by an Englishman in Lahore during Partition. Ten years later, Irene, a young European woman still struggling with her World War II memories, joins Amir Shah's family. Together, the characters form an unlikely family where love and blame are everywhere in their steadily disintegrating home. FIVE QUEEN'S ROAD is a novel about family and memory and characters who fight to overcome both.

The reading is free and open to the public.

Saturday, September 20, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
DesiLit Champagne Brunch with authors Sorayya Khan, Boman Desai and Mary Anne Mohanraj
(brunch from 10 - noon, joint author reading from noon - 1 p.m.) Mohanraj home, Wicker Park (near North and Damen)

Pre-registration required, limit 20 participants; $10 includes cost of brunch.

Boman Desai grew up in Bombay, but has lived his adult life in Chicago. He got his first break when an elegant elderly woman submitted a number of his stories to the editor-in-chief of Debonair magazine in Bombay. The stories were all published, but the woman disappeared, and her identity remains a mystery to this day. He has written five novels: THE MEMORY OF ELEPHANTS; ASYLUM, USA; A WOMAN MADLY IN LOVE; SERVANT, MASTER, MISTRESS; and TRIO.

Register through PayPal (your credit card accepted):

Saturday, September 20, 4-6 p.m.
Writing Workshop -- Writing Your Identity
Each and every one of us possess complex identities, which include such elements as race, age, ethnicity, gender, orientation, religion, class, national, political orientation and much more. This fiction / nonfiction writing workshop will help you get started exploring your identity in prose with exercises and discussion. The workshop is open to all levels of writers; beginners are welcome! Please bring either pen and paper or a laptop to write on, and please arrive on time. This workshop is free and open to the public.

Instructor Bio: Mary Anne Mohanraj (www.mamohanraj.com) is the author of BODIES IN MOTION, Sri Lankan-American linked stories (2005, HarperCollins) and THE POET'S JOURNEY (2008, Serendib Press). She teaches creative writing and Asian American literature at University of Illinois and Northwestern University, and has received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose. She is Executive Director of both DesiLit (www.desilit.org), which supports S. Asian and diaspora literature, and the Speculative Literature Foundation (www.speclit.org).

Saturday, September 20, 7-9 pm.
Voices of Resistance
DesiLit is delighted to co-sponsor SAPAC's 7th annual Voices of Resistance show.

DesiLit is grateful for the support of the Kiran Bavikatte Memorial Foundation which made these events possible.