by Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu

My friend recently lost his baby. The baby had emerged from her mother crying and kicking that day, like all newborns. But a few hours later, she was dead. They suspect an undetected complication.  For a while after I heard the news, I could not decide on what to say if I reached out to […]

There is a part in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns where Mullah Faizullah, an aged Islamic cleric, teaches a very young Mariam to read the Qur’an.  The book itself is a devastating chorus of tragedies, lost loves and war in Afghanistan. I still consider it to be one of the best things ever written. […]