June 03, 2009
‘I am an advocate of Islam’s truer face’
I first heard about Shaila Abdullah through Austin’s South Asian Professional Alliance, a budding NetIP group. Curious, I ordered a copy of her second book Saffron Dreams. I discovered it to be a thought-provoking story of a 9/11 widow and Muslim writer, living in the US, who shapes a novel even as a baby grows in her womb. The protagonist — Arissa Illahi, a veil-wearing Muslim woman — loses her husband in the 9/11 tragedy. Pregnant and alone, she discovers an unfinished manuscript penned by her husband and decides to finish it as a tribute to him.
Ismailimail 