From Lahore to Sydney, a Muslim feminist’s debut novel rebels against the suffocation of safety

By Eda Gunaydin, Lecturer, International Studies, University of Wollongong

The protagonist in Raaza Jamshed’s novel What Kept You? grows up in Lahore, Pakistan, under her grandmother’s watchful eye, in a house that sits in the shadow of the city’s walls. The memory of the turmoil and human suffering that resulted from India’s Partition in 1947 swirls around Jahan’s upbringing.

In an attempt to make her fearful of what awaits her outside the relative safety of home, Jahan’s female carers tell her stories about demons, as well as the more mundane reality of men’s…

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