Ishtiyaq Shukri

Ishtiyaq Shukri is a South African writer, author of the novels The Silent Minaret and I See You. The Silent Minaret was the first book to receive the European Union Literary Award, in 2004 Quotes I’ve always travelled, since a very early age. My first road trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town was when I was two weeks old. I got my first passport when I was seven. Lesotho was my first international destination. I knew immediately I was in another country. Yes, there was the landscape and the dress and the cold. But it was the black faces on billboards, and the comingling of black and white people, those were the things that stood out. As they say, travel broadens the mind – even at age seven – and I’ve never forgotten that trip. Southern Africa, Nigeria and Egypt followed, Egypt being my first experience outside the English-speaking world. How English speakers assume the Englishness of the world. The realisation that Egypt is not called Egypt in Egypt made me realise that I knew only the English version of people, places and events. I realised that my education had been unreliable, so I threw it out and went back to square one, starting with Arabic classes. Britain, Western Europe and the United States came later. In recent years I’ve been based in the Middle East – the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Oman – and have travelled in Jordan, Syria, Yemen and back to Egypt. India is also special because I finished The Silent Minaret there. South Africa and the UK are regular destinations, too. So over the years I’ve come to experience “home” less as a house or even a nation state, and more as a feeling – the feeling when the unfamiliar becomes familiar, when an immigration officer at a quiet border post in the desert says, “I remember you. Welcome back.” The thrill of learning something new about oneself in the middle of nowhere, and the kick of being understood in a “foreign” language. Having said that, the word “foreign” has fallen from my vocabulary. The more one travels, the less one needs it. It’s just excess baggage. External links Category: Living people