Description
Europe, Love Me Back is a collection of relentlessly questing, sharply satirical poems about the continent, and the poet’s fraught relationship with it. Hurting yet clear-eyed, Rizwan explores and exposes what it means to be a small brown woman in Dutch suburbs, hospitals and academia
This is an angry love letter, to a place left behind yet always there, continuing to matter and hurt and shape the poet’s identity.
Praise for Paisley
‘Rakhshan Rizwan impresses with an alert and peripatetic poetic consciousness.’ – Sabotage Reviews
‘There is fierce energy here, and uncompromising intensity.’ – Sphinx
‘A striking debut collection which evokes the rich culture and history of Rizwan’s native Lahore. Themes of belonging, migration and displacement abound, as Rizwan examines the split linguistic self of the migrant: “My voice is the mirror that breaks in Urdu”. The patterns of her homeland are ever-present: “in a new country, let us dream of different paisleys”. Combining free verse and complex ghazals, this is a powerful exploration of the role of women in Pakistan and beyond.’ – PBS Bulletin
