The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual book launch! We’re joined by Zahid Rafiq to discuss his debut story collection, The World With Its Mouth Open. Zahid is in conversation with Emily Fridlund, Booker Prize finalist author of History of Wolves.
RSVP below to receive login information (our virtual events are held via Zoom). FREE and open to the public, all times Eastern
We encourage you to order a copy of the book from your local, independent bookseller or online »
Zahid Rafiq is a writer living in Srinagar, Kashmir. He was a journalist for several years before turning to writing fiction. The World With Its Mouth Open is his first book.
Emily Fridlund’s novel, History of Wolves, was a finalist for the Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. It was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. Fridlund’s debut collection of stories, Catapult, won the Mary McCarthy Prize. Her short fiction has been published in a variety of publications, including Boston Review, Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, and Southwest Review. Fridlund lives with her family in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where she teaches writing at Cornell University.
About the Book
In eleven stories, The World With Its Mouth Open follows the inner lives of people in Kashmir as they walk the uncertain terrain of their days, fractured from years of war. From a shopkeeper’s encounter with a mannequin, to an expectant mother walking on a precarious road, to a young boy wavering between dreams and reality, to two dogs wandering the city, these stories weave in larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways. Although the stories circle the darker aspects of life, they are—at the same time—an attempt to run into life, into humor, into beauty, into another person who can offer refuge, if momentarily.
Zahid Rafiq’s The World With Its Mouth Open is an original and powerful debut collection announcing the arrival of a new voice that bears witness to the human condition with nuance, heart, humor, and incredible insight.
If you need an accommodation for this event, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.