Book description
When ten Pakistani men walk into Kathleen Jamie's small Scottish town
on a peace march, in November 2001, she is thrown back to her own
travels in Northern Pakistan and a book she wrote a decade
earlier.
Among Muslims is the account of Jamie's time travelling
alone and living among the Shia and Ismaili Muslims in the Northern
Areas - the mountainous regions wedged between Afghanistan, India and
China and one of the most volatile borderlands in the world.
A
bold, sympathetic and superbly written book, Among Muslims delves into
Jamie's own Scottish upbringing to find links with the
purdah-observing lifestyle of her Shia Muslim hosts. It is a
privileged account from an acclaimed poet, who during her travels was
often literally the only woman on the bus.
Among Muslims was
originally published as The Golden Peak. For this edition, Kathleen
Jamie returned to Pakistan to write an Afterword and Preface.
Kathleen Jamie was born in the west of Scotland in 1962. Her
poetry collections include The Tree House (Picador 2004), which won
both the Forward prize, and the Scottish Book of the Year Award;
Jizzen (Picador 1999) which won the Geoffey Faber Memorial Award and
Mr and Mrs Scotland are Dead which was shortlisted for the 2003
Griffin Prize. Among Muslims, first published as, The Golden Peak; an
account of her travels in rural Pakistan, was re-published by Sort of
Books in 2005. It was described as 'utterly luminous' (The
Independent) and 'one of the most powerful accounts by a contemporary
Western writer' (TLS). Her subsequent collection of prose essays,
Findings (Sort of Books 2006) is considered a landmark in nature
writing. Sightlines (Sort of Books 2012) is the highly anticipated
sequel to Findings.
Kathleen is Professor of Creative Writing at Stirling University.
She lives with her family in Fife.
