BOOKS
Author Interview Nazeen Ahmed Pathak
Community lies at the heart of Nazneen Ahmed Pathak‘s middle-grade début inspired by British- Bengali history
Fiona Noble @fionanoblebooks 18 31st March 2023
I
n 2013, Nazneen Ahmed Pathak had just given birth to her son. “I started to think about the fact that he didn’t have any stories that were about his identit and his heritage,” she tells me, speaking over video call from her home in Southampton. Pathak’s son is third-generation British-Bangladeshi, and both sides of the family are from places very much connected to the British Empire. Prior to maternit leave, Pathak, a historian, had been working on a project about religious communities in the East End of London. As an area she knew well, she expected the work to focus on Muslim communities in the 1960s. “Immediately I became aware that the diverse communities that live in London have been there for hundreds of years.”
Communities of colour have, she explains, always been connected to the UK port cities through empire, slavery and colonialism. “When we start to look at those relation- ships, we begin to understand the idea of belonging in a very different way.” Her work revealed Bangladeshi seafar- ers, known as Lascars, who had been travelling in and out of ports around the world for hundreds of years. “In the 19th century, some men would jump ship in East London, marry local women, have families and setle.” This was
Photography: Laura Cuch
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
