Huma Qureshi talks about her new book, for which she spoke to people from across Britain’s South Asian community

For most expectant mothers, pregnancy is a time to pause, make plans and look to the future. For the writer Huma Qureshi, however, conceiving her first child set her off on an unexpected emotional journey that ended with not only a beautiful baby boy, but also a debut collection of short stories out today.

The pregnancy also lent an urgency to her writing.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would pass on to my son,” says Qureshi, who grew up in England to Pakistani parents and has written for The National. “I don’t speak very good Urdu and I certainly felt I didn’t know as much as I should about my family history. How had I got to this point, what did my heritage mean? And I came to the conclusion that it’s not just the past that explains who you are, it’s the choices you make too. I’d like to think that comes across in the characters I wrote.”

It certainly does. In Spite of Oceans: Migrant Voices comprises 10 short stories populated with South Asian characters trying to make sense of Britain – be that a vivacious Indian mother whose sons are not interested in the “raunak” (the liveliness) of everyday life, or a teenage girl growing up kicking against the traditions of her parents.

Keen to avoid the clichés of the “culture-clash immigrant experience novel”, as Qureshi calls it, she put her journalism career to good use and actually began by interviewing normal people she came across.

“You know at the start of a film where it says ‘Based on a true story’?” she says with a smile. “It was like that. I kept encountering people whose lives I found fascinating and I couldn’t stop thinking about their backstories, how they came to be in the UK and how that had a knock-on effect on my generation born and brought up here. Such rich, emotional and personal stories – and it really appealed to be able to have, for a short period of time, a little window into the lives of quiet people. Everyone has a story to tell, I genuinely believe that.”

Original article by Ben East

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Huma Qureshi talks about her new book, for which she spoke to people from across Britain’s South Asian community