Press Release – Losing Battles Winning Wars – Debut poetry collection by Abda Khan
Novelist Abda Khan’s debut poetry collection, Losing Battles Winning Wars, is a thought-provoking journey through the challenges she has navigated as a first generation British Pakistani Muslim woman
Out 7 March
Available to pre-order now!
Abda Khan’s debut poetry collection is a thought-provoking journey over five decades, through the challenges she has navigated as a first generation British Pakistani Muslim woman, and about how writing poetry has helped her to come to terms with personal trauma and to try and make some sense of the world around her.
As a result of her personal experiences and the issues she has come across in her work, the poems deal with some heavy issues (something Abda has never shied away from in her novels); bereavement, abuse, inequality, injustice, depression, menopause – but they are tinged with an overwhelming sense of the strength of the human spirit and a feeling of hope.
Abda Khan – New Poetry Book
Born to immigrant parents in a multicultural deprived inner city area of Bradford, and into a conservative Pakistani family & community, Abda rejected the notion of knowing her ‘place’ & fought not only cultural attitudes but wider barriers too in order to pursue an education and a professional career at a time when very few females from her community did. She has been called everything from trailblazer to troublemaker; these poems give an insight into her the journey thus far.
Abda Khan is a lawyer turned writer and author of the novels ‘Stained’ (2016, described by Booklist, USA, as the ‘contemporary Tess of the d’Urbervilles’), and ‘Razia’ (2019). She has finished her third book, and is researching her next book, which will be her first historical novel, inspired by her late father who fought in Burma in WW2. Her work has also been featured in anthologies and other publications. Abda writes commissioned pieces (short scripts, poetry, spoken word, fiction and non-fiction) for various publications, organisations and projects, teaches creative writing courses, specialising in workshops about culturally sensitive writing, and produces and directs a variety of creative projects.
She is a Desi Blitz Arts Ambassador, a Lloyds Bank Women of the Future Ambassador, and won British Muslim Woman of the Year in 2019.
