Nasim Marie Jafry's Blog, page 9

Five days after the morning after

It seems like months ago we voted to stay or go - I had a tear in the polling booth, it felt like destiny was weighing on you -  a real chance to make a fairer country - but not even a week has passed since the Scottish referendum. Last Thursday night, it felt like Hogmanay, but you didn't know when the bells would be, or if there would even be bells. I sat up 'til just after midnight but had to go to bed, woke up at six, so nervous, saw a FB message from a friend in Australia, saying, I...

The Istanbul Review: Issue 5

Delighted that the gorgeous The Istanbul Review Issue 5 is now on sale in Looking Glass Books, a wonderful indie book store in Edinburgh. I have flash fiction in this one.

Fact is stranger than fiction (you never know who's on your train)

The weather up north was terrible, but the scenery is always sublime,  Loch Morlich is a gem.



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In Rothiemurcus, my nephews caught a rainbow trout, my mother baked it with dill and garlic.  One lunchtime, my stepdad got stuck in the bath, pure sitcom territory, if you didn't laugh you would never stop crying, he is going deeper and deeper into his own twilight, his world of vascular dementia. Though, one night, he made a joke about  'indypandence', should Tian Tian the panda at E...

I don't know what to say about Gaza

I don't know what to say about Gaza, writers should have words, but I have no words. I just want to scream with despair and rage and grief when I watch the news (I watch Channel 4 and Al Jazeera's coverage,  have given up on the BBC). I can't go on marches (though how effective marching is, any more, I don't know, though it demonstrates to Gazans that many in the world are aghast at their suffering). I already boycott Israeli produce in my own tiny way, I never buy fruit or vegetables that, ...

Beware of giving 2 star reviews, it might get a bit Jeanette Winterson...

The other evening I wrote this review on a book site - the book I am describing is non-fiction, a book about books:

'I realise I am in the minority in feeling underwhelmed by this book, it just did not engage me at all. In the end, I just skimmed it. Was disappointed, after the great reviews I'd seen.'

I rated the book as 2 stars, which corresponds to 'It was okay'. (I have in the past given 2 star reviews to acclaimed novels such as David Vann's 'Legend of a Suicide'. And 1 star to Ian McEwan'...

Summer reads and varifocals

Today, I have varifocals, it is strange and not strange. Apparently, high myopes adjust more easily because we are so used anyway to turning our heads to see. I remember getting my first glasses - NHS pale blue plastic - in 1975, aged ten. The optician's was also a jeweller's, I got my ears pierced there, aged fourteen (I think that  scene is fictionalised in The State of Me). I have no idea where my high myopia comes from. My Scottish side are bastards, they have eyes like hawks, and my...

Books, glorious books, and a moth that looks embroidered

In the last week, the postman has brought three classy books.
I won a copy of Maggie Gee's  Virginia Woolf in Manhattan on Twitter  (Saqi Books asked which woman writer we would most like to meet, I said Ismat Chughtai). Lovely to have this gorgeous hardback to add to my bookshelves. And I very much look forward to reading (though my TBR pile is simply scary).




My publisher, The Friday Project, sent me up Charles Lambert's wonderfully titled With a Zero at its Heart. It's getting great...

Six years on, still getting lovely feedback on novel

Almost six  years on, lovely to get feedback from readers of The State of Me: this from Merry Speece in Ohio:

I just finished reading The State of Me and wanted to tell you how much I liked it. I particularly admire your intelligence and sense of humor and your commitment to advocacy. I enjoyed the story (you are a born novelist), and you did a good job explaining the illness ME. I have been ill for more than 45 years. My mother was also ill; I have no memory of her as well.

Full comment...

Glasgow School of Art, always there like a jewel...

It was like watching an old friend dying right in front of you and being unable to do anything except witness the event, helplessly. This is how many of us felt seeing the pictures and footage - all over social media - on Friday of our stunning Glasgow School of Art on fire.

Even if you didn't attend the art school, it was always there like a jewel, and you knew someone who did. I recall in the eighties going to the degree show of a flatmate of one of my brother's. He looked like David Bowie a...

Reading a novel when you have dementia

I've been thinking about what it's like to read a novel when you have moderate to severe dementia. My stepdad can no longer follow the plot in a film or drama or Antiques Road Show, constantly asking my mother who is who and what is what and when is Thursday, but he still loves to read. Whenever I visit, he always has a book on the go, on the table downstairs and at night by his bedside. I love to see him reading, absorbed in what he is doing, getting pleasure. I watch and wonder how much he...