Adab Festival Highlights February 21, 2019 – Posted in: Guest Post – Tags: Tehmina Khan, Things She Could Never Have

As delighted as I was on receiving an invitation to read at the Adab Festival in Karachi, I was also anxious in the days leading up to it. I had fallen off a treadmill just the week before, and was suffering from terrible headaches, which sometimes left me searching for words. I was scared of making a fool of myself on stage.

But thanks to Nadya Mujahid-Chisti and Shazaf Haider, the evening turned out to be a lovely one. Shazaf Haider is a fellow fiction writer (How it Happened and A Firefly in the Dark) and Nadya Mujahid-Chisti, among other things, reviews books for Dawn. Our conversation flowed easily and the experience felt more like a really good conversation with friends than a book launch. I hope the people attending enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

The Festival ran over the weekend at the Sind Governor House. A grand setting. I attended Shazaf Haider’s, Muhammad Hanif’s, and Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s  readings. I also chased Muhammad Hanif down to ask him to sign my copy of his latest book, Red Birds. I approached him, all fangirl gushy, and he responded by asking me, a middle-aged woman as to where I study! Argh! This is not the impression I wanted to create, but at least it makes for a good story.