Shelfies #23: Mahvesh Murad

I don’t usually shelve books so sparsely, but if I had to separate a few that I’d want to read endlessly until the end of days, it would be these ragged paperbacks.

The first book is my first copy of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love, which I randomly came across in Montreal about a decade after it was published. I knew nothing about it, or her, when I picked it up. I didn’t know it would immediately become the book I wish I’d written. For all its weirdness, all its darkness and cruelty, its sensitivity and love, it is remarkable. It has not stopped haunting me since the first time I read it.

Of course Geek Love’s fairy godmother is Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus. This wasn’t my first story by Carter (I found a copy of The Bloody Chamber in a Karachi bazaar and that started my Carter fetish), but it’s definitely one that stayed with me longest, in all its fabulous, voluptuous glory. It’s one of those books that I adore for its unabashedly too much-ness; Carter did whatever the hell she wanted, and gave zero fucks about propriety of language. Also, her protagonist, Fevvers, is a fantastic character, an incredible unforgettable voice. I’d like to spend the day with her.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the greatest American novel ever written, and I’ll stand by that statement always. I reread it every few years, and it tears me apart each time and serves as a reminder of the nightmare that America has been, can be, continues to be, in so many, many ways.

I bought this ratty tatty copy of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister in Karachi’s Itwar Bazar, back when my main source of reading material were the second hand thrift stalls set up at the Sunday market, creaky wooden tables piled with dusty old titles, their yellowed pages smelling faintly of humidity and the remnants of the hippie trail. Until I read Chandler, I hadn’t known any crime fiction other than the Agatha Christie novels that somehow exist in every English-speaking Pakistani household. I probably didn’t know that any fiction could be written with such lean muscularity, be so sparse and yet so rhythmic. Years later, at university in Montreal, I took a course on the hard-boiled novel and was introduced to other writers who did the same thing, but The Little Sister will always be the book that shaped my noir tastes & my love for fiction that moves with such fluid strength.

Also on this shelf are two pieces of art by Anushka Rustamji and Ayesha Shariff, both Pakistani woman artists whose work based on spirituality, myth and magic. There’s also a miniature model Karachi rickshaw. Every time I look at that rickshaw, I hear their two stroke engines that are so deeply woven into the aural tapestry of the city.

Mahvesh Murad is an editor and voice artist from Karachi, Pakistan. She has co-edited the World Fantasy Award nominated short story anthologies The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories, and The Outcast Hours. She currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. If you are interested in sharing a shelfie, please let us know.