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If you were a real man, she said, you wouldn’t have tolerated me talking to you like that. She thought it would be her final knock-out blow — victory hers — drumming her point home; feeble loser. And by your definition, he replied, if you were the real deal you wouldn’t have talked to me [...]

You complained that your man was not religious, but at least he was kind. Now your husband is a zealot. One day we will hear you complain that this man made you hate Islam. Never will you ask what he meant when he said he hated your Islam, when you rejected his five prayers and [...]

In 1996 I wrote a novel entitled The Beauty of the Lion. From a literary point of view, it was a disaster, but for me as the writer it was remarkably influential. There was nothing remarkable about the book itself, except for its particularly sloppy style and poor punctuation. Indeed, I suppose the same story [...]

‘You may have convinced everyone else Sara,’ sneered Sajeda, ‘but I’m not persuaded by this sudden transformation of yours.’1 Blocking the entrance to the prayer room, preventing Sara from entering, she raised her right hand and jabbed it towards her heart. Forlornly, Sara looked back at the one person she had always respected and trusted; [...]

“Humanity’s single most important role,” Said the man with no hair, “Is to claim Victimisation. You, Mr. Bowes, are claiming it all the time.” I looked up at him. I felt like a victim. He was singling me out From the two thousand men, filling the tent. “You are always complaining,” He continued, “That people [...]

I wanted to hate her because she made me feel like nothing. I wanted to make her feel small because she made me feel small. I wanted to hurt her because she hurt me. I thought of a hundred ways to hate. Now I am reduced to a mad, psycotic idiot, crying, lying down in [...]

When Vijay sat down next to her and she felt happy inside, she knew that it was wrong. Thaira knew that she wasn’t supposed to think like that, but she did. For weeks she let it go, knowing that she could never let anything become of it. There were days when it got too much [...]