What is Home, Mum?

by Sabba Khan

Overview

One of the top ten graphic novels for Spring 2022, as chosen by Publishers Weekly

“Khan debuts with a deeply introspective, elegantly rendered graphic memoir about her experiences, faith, and family in the South Asian diaspora community of East London. . . . It's a powerful debut by a singularly penetrative and eloquent voice.” —Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

What do identity, belonging, and memory mean to one young Muslim woman and her family against a backdrop of history?

As a second-generation Pakistani immigrant living in East London, Sabba Khan paints a vivid snapshot of contemporary British Asian life and investigates the complex shifts experienced by different generations within immigrant communities, creating an uplifting and universal story that crosses borders and decades. Race, gender, and class are explored in a compelling personal narrative creating a strong feminist message of self-reflection and empowerment which is illuminated in stunning artwork.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951491178
Publisher:	Street Noise Books
Publication date:	05/17/2022
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	634,257
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Sabba Khan is a visual artist, graphic novelist, and architectural designer. She is an advocate for increasing working-class black and brown representation in the arts and publishing as well as in architecture and construction. Her work is included in the Eisner award-winning graphic anthology Drawing Power. And she currently lives in East London, in the UK. This is her debut as an author.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/28/2022

Khan debuts with a deeply introspective, elegantly rendered graphic memoir about her experiences, faith, and family in the South Asian diaspora community of East London. Within the confines of the family home, Sabba is “the good girl of a good mother.” Outside of it, she questions who she is and where she belongs. She asks her mother, “Where is home?” and thereby marks the divide: to her parents, home is Kashmir, a land made inhospitable by imperialism, war, and the partition of India and Pakistan. Sabba realizes that, by embracing her contradictions and letting go of the weight of ingrained traditions, she can break through her family’s protective barrier and find “home” in the outside world and in those she loves. The loose-line art employs visual metaphors—such as Escher-esque geometric forms, nested self-portraits, or still lifes of household items with poetic commentary—to express the multiplicities and fragmentation of identity. Cultural and political history is woven between family stories and fables, and particularly poignant are the portraits of Sabba and her mother expressing their bond through touch. The prose infuses the work with a heady sensuality; when Sabba falls in love, she writes, “Beneath it all we are quivering flesh. Glistening in the sun. Goose-pimpled in the moon.” The synthesis of her work offers avenues to bridge gaps between strangers and repair frayed bonds with family. It’s a powerful debut by a singularly penetrative and eloquent voice. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A great read, filled with joy and heartbreak, touching both the heart and the mind.” —Azar Nafisi, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran

“A breath of fresh air. Beautiful and inviting. Enthusiastically recommended for all, who in a globalized world find ourselves between the local and the global.” —Omid Safi, author of Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition

“A jewel of a book. Exquisitely moving, almost painfully so. Investigating the architecture of the heart and all the systems that surround it with precision and grace.” —Bishakh Som, author of Apsara Engine and Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir

“Breathtaking imagery. Never shying away from the complexities and the pain, but holding this alongside so much hope and love that it feels like magic!” —Ruby Elliot, author of It's All Absolutely Fine: Life Is Complicated So I've Drawn It Instead

“A beautiful, ethereal, and architectural meditation on belonging and identity.” —Kate Evans, author of Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg

“Sabba Khan builds whole vast and delicate worlds on her pages and leads you through them with her big beautiful curious heart.” —Danny Noble, author of Shame Pudding: A Graphic Memoir

From the Publisher

★ 10/28/2022

Mixing lyrical, even meditative prose, with deeply personal and intimate questions of self and family, Khan offers readers a powerful reflection on her life as a child, daughter, family member, lover, professional, and member of the Kashmiri diaspora in London. She intertwines her personal experience with her community experience into a larger historical story to probe with delicacy and yet sharp-sighted power at questions of identity, history, belonging, and place. Beautifully reflecting her emotions, thoughts, and life in art, she creates detailed, metaphorical, and layered imagery that fractures, wraps, folds, and flows into and out of itself. The hand-lettered text is dense and yet spills across and down the pages, each variously designed so that the result is a cacophony that reflects mood and event with stunning force. At times hypnotic, at times heartbreaking, at times enraging, and at all times illuminating and multifaceted, the work invites and rewards close, and repeated, reading. VERDICT An essential purchase for all collections. Add it to the top of your book club suggestion list, and offer it to readers of literary fiction exploring similar themes of identity and belonging.—Neal Wyatt

Library Journal