About Book

Fawzia Afzal-Khan writings about travel--covering physical, intellectual, emotional journeys, spanning continents as well as different phases of her journey, are collected here for the first time. From Sarajevo to Accra, Cairo to Havana, Abu Dhabi to Beirut, Amman to Ramallah, Jenin to Jerusalem, New York to Lahore and beyond, this collection of essays brings together her academic, artistic and activist selves to paint a picture of an adventurous life lived with passionate conviction and in pursuit of justice. This book will speak to budding feminist travelers and lovers of this earth we share, as well as to minds seeking to expand their horizons beyond normative expectations of the here and now. Fawzia Afzal Khan travel-inspired analytic writing takes its rightful place as that of a Muslim female traveler writing back to orientalist women travelers of the 19th and twentieth centuries. Dr. Waseem Anwar, Professor of English Director of International Centre for Pakistani Writing in English Kinnaird College for Women, writes about this book: What happens when a postcolonial Muslim academic feminist, a performing artist and a sociocultural activist, crosses borders around the world with her diasporic spirit twixt nation and its narration, a global "khita-e-arz" asking for resistance against all sorts of discursive violence? Read Fawzia Afzal-Khan's Traveling Feminista for thought-provoking answers! Literary Critic and writer Muneeza Shamsie says that the Traveling Feminista by Fawzia Afzal Khan is a rare and unusual book, a sequence of rich, vivid essays, written across several decades, which place her firmly as a modern, contemporary and postcolonial heir to pioneering South Asian Muslim women travel writers who forged a voice of their own in colonial times. Similarly she challenges the stereotypes and pre-conceived notions of The Other, both in foreign countries and her own homeland. Her writings span both America, where she now lives, and Pakistan, where she grew up. Added to this, she describes countless other places she has experienced ranging from the Bahamas, Canada and Bosnia to Egypt, Turkey and Palestine. Into this she brings her experience as an academic, playwright, actor and director, as well as a daughter, wife, mother and grandmother and illuminates the burning of questions of our times. Issues of migration, identity and belonging, the experiences of Islamophobia in the west, the rise of religious extremism in many lands, the Zia era and the bold, women’s movement in Pakistan today, are all addressed, as is the covid era, and wider international debates on justice, dignity and equality, both political and personal. She provides valuable insights into the many different roles of literature, culture and the arts, across borders and boundaries—a subject pivotal to her travels and her writing: Nawal el Sadaawi, Toni Morrison, Sara Suleri also find mention here, among very many others.

About Author

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a schol-ar-ivist, a university distinguished scholar and professor of English at Montclair State University in NJ. She has a Phd from Tufts University in Massachusetts, and did her undergraduate studies at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. She has taught at NYUAD, Harvard, Kinnaird, and Forman Christian College as well as Government College (Lahore). She has been recipient of Fulbright and WEB Dubois fellowships as well as a National Endowment of the Humanities grant to complete an award winning short documentary film on Pakistani women singers. Author of 6 books including a memoir on growing up in Lahore, her latest book was Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through its Women Singers, published by OUP in 2021. She is currently working on a book on Queer Pakistan. In her spare time she likes to sing, act, play with her grandkids and use her art in service of progressive social and political change.