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We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir
Even when we leave them, our cities never leave us. After her Dutch mother’s death, Sorayya Khan confronts her grief by revisiting their relationship, her parents’ lives, and her own Pakistani-Dutch heritage in a multicultural memoir that unfolds over seven cities and three continents. We Take Our Cities with Us ushers us from Khan’s childhood independence forged at her grandparents’ home in Lahore; to her adolescence in Pakistan’s new capital, Islamabad; to Syracuse and Ithaca, New York, where Khan finds her footing as the mother of young, brown sons in post-9/11 America; to her birthplace, Vienna, where her parents die; and finally to Amsterdam and Maastricht, the cities of her mother’s conflicted youth. In Khan’s gripping telling of her immigrant experience, she shows us what it is to raise children and lose parents in worlds other than your own. Drawing on family history, geopolitics, and art in this stunning story of loss, identity, and rediscovery, Khan beautifully illuminates the complexities of our evolving global world and its most important constant: love.
154 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 7, 2022
5 people are currently reading
2719 people want to read
About the author
Sorayya Khan
5 books129 followersSorayya Khan was born in Vienna, Austria, grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan, and received her BA and MA in the US. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer until she began writing fiction and couldn’t stop.
Sorayya is the author of We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir (2022), which she wrote after her mother’s death, and three novels, Noor (2004), Five Queen’s Road (2009), and City of Spies (2015), which won Best International Fiction Award at the Sharjah Book Fair (2016).
Sorayya’s writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, The Kenyon Review, North American Review, The Malahat Review, Journal of Narrative Politics, and several other magazines and anthologies. She is the winner of a Malahat Review Novella Prize for "In the Shadows of the Margalla Hills," an early imagining of a central event in City of Spies. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award which took her to Bangladesh and Pakistan in order to research Noor --and changed her understanding of humanity and war. Some years ago, before she realized she would write non-fiction, she received a grant from a local arts foundation that sent her to Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where she interviewed tsunami survivors and learned more about love and resilience than she could have imagined. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband and two children, and is happy to be again at work in a fictional universe.
Sorayya is the author of We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir (2022), which she wrote after her mother’s death, and three novels, Noor (2004), Five Queen’s Road (2009), and City of Spies (2015), which won Best International Fiction Award at the Sharjah Book Fair (2016).
Sorayya’s writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, The Kenyon Review, North American Review, The Malahat Review, Journal of Narrative Politics, and several other magazines and anthologies. She is the winner of a Malahat Review Novella Prize for "In the Shadows of the Margalla Hills," an early imagining of a central event in City of Spies. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award which took her to Bangladesh and Pakistan in order to research Noor --and changed her understanding of humanity and war. Some years ago, before she realized she would write non-fiction, she received a grant from a local arts foundation that sent her to Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where she interviewed tsunami survivors and learned more about love and resilience than she could have imagined. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband and two children, and is happy to be again at work in a fictional universe.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 6, 2022
Khan explores her mother’s family history that spanned three continents and several cities. She examines how each place that we live lives a mark on us.
I enjoyed all the details she shared as I find reading family history so interesting and insightful.
Thanks to Mad Creek Books and Edelweiss for the early read.
I enjoyed all the details she shared as I find reading family history so interesting and insightful.
Thanks to Mad Creek Books and Edelweiss for the early read.
November 30, 2022
“Meeting memory or coming face to face with a scrap of someone else’s, changes it…”
Sorayya Khan
Sorayya Khan’s memoir, We Take Our Cities With Us, is an intimate sharing of her most intriguing life while reconciling the grief following the loss of her mother. With tenacious pursuit, she traces her mother’s life, traveling a path between several worlds. Her mother, born white and Christian in the Netherlands, and her father, born brown and Muslim in Pakistan, she tells of her mother’s transition to a Muslim life. The author searches for her own identity as a mixed-race citizen of the world, no boxes on forms that say Dutch/Pakistani. She raises her own brown children in a time presenting its own trials.
And mothers? Always a complicated tangle of emotion to decipher.
As with Sorayya Khan’s novels, the geographical detail she employs allows the reader to travel beside her between Ithaca, Vienna, Karachi, Amsterdam, and Islamabad. Beautifully told, brave in its telling, and filled with grace, I truly loved this memoir.
Sorayya Khan
Sorayya Khan’s memoir, We Take Our Cities With Us, is an intimate sharing of her most intriguing life while reconciling the grief following the loss of her mother. With tenacious pursuit, she traces her mother’s life, traveling a path between several worlds. Her mother, born white and Christian in the Netherlands, and her father, born brown and Muslim in Pakistan, she tells of her mother’s transition to a Muslim life. The author searches for her own identity as a mixed-race citizen of the world, no boxes on forms that say Dutch/Pakistani. She raises her own brown children in a time presenting its own trials.
And mothers? Always a complicated tangle of emotion to decipher.
As with Sorayya Khan’s novels, the geographical detail she employs allows the reader to travel beside her between Ithaca, Vienna, Karachi, Amsterdam, and Islamabad. Beautifully told, brave in its telling, and filled with grace, I truly loved this memoir.
November 13, 2022
I loved this short beautiful memoir about, well, being a human on this earth. Khan explores her identity as the daughter of a Pakistani father and Dutch mother, the mother of two boys in the US, and the writer of novels that explore the intersection of private lives and global events. She takes us all around the world and close up to the private moments of falling in love, having children, losing parents. The first powerful chapter, in which her young boys lives are forever changed on 9/11, should be required reading for every American. Enjoy!
November 23, 2022
I loved this introspective, thoughtful, beautifully-written memoir by Sorayya Khan. The author not only explores her own memories and the often disparate memories of family members, she explores the nature of memory and how it may impact our choices, our lives, and the lives of our children. The memoir delves into what it means to be "other" by the color of one's skin, religion, or past traumas. And it is a deep exploration of conflict, illness, and death. I was deeply touched by her descriptions of family members' illnesses, by the death of each parent, and what she discovers in the process about herself, about her family, and about the complexities of how each was shaped by the past and shapes the experiences of those who follow. Rich descriptions of artworks layer color, theme, and mystery into the memoir. I read this in one sitting, but will read it again for its complexities.
I received an advanced reader copy of this memoir from the author in exchange for an honest review.
I received an advanced reader copy of this memoir from the author in exchange for an honest review.
March 13, 2023
Being a fan of Sorayya Khan’s novels, I was very excited when I came to know that she is going to publish her memoir. That too with her cities, as she is splendid at making a city alive to a total stranger!’
I read two of her books- ‘Noor’ and ‘Five Queen’s Road’. Both left an exceptional impression on me. Both were set in Pakistan, one right after the birth of Pakistan, another after the birth of Bangladesh, that left Pakistan divided again. In this memoir, Sorayya Khan reflects on her cities, her mother and grandmother, raising two brown kids in post 9/11. Slowly she unveils the inspiration of her books. That her books are deeply based on her close family made them so gripping!
It was a short read, about a hundred pages. The events at the beginning were described a bit haphazardly. I felt I would like more pages to come to know about her children’s stories, chronologically of course. I definitely liked the way she portrayed the cities. Her childhood in Pakistan was so alive through the pages, you could smell the city, its dirty, raw meat shops, class differences, women who were nowhere to be seen, and the haunted houses left by the Bengalis. Towards the end, I was losing interest in knowing Khan’s mother’s life. It seemed personal and quite well written, but I wasn’t amused.
Would definitely suggest her novels, especially if you are interested to have a glimpse of Pakistan!
I read two of her books- ‘Noor’ and ‘Five Queen’s Road’. Both left an exceptional impression on me. Both were set in Pakistan, one right after the birth of Pakistan, another after the birth of Bangladesh, that left Pakistan divided again. In this memoir, Sorayya Khan reflects on her cities, her mother and grandmother, raising two brown kids in post 9/11. Slowly she unveils the inspiration of her books. That her books are deeply based on her close family made them so gripping!
It was a short read, about a hundred pages. The events at the beginning were described a bit haphazardly. I felt I would like more pages to come to know about her children’s stories, chronologically of course. I definitely liked the way she portrayed the cities. Her childhood in Pakistan was so alive through the pages, you could smell the city, its dirty, raw meat shops, class differences, women who were nowhere to be seen, and the haunted houses left by the Bengalis. Towards the end, I was losing interest in knowing Khan’s mother’s life. It seemed personal and quite well written, but I wasn’t amused.
Would definitely suggest her novels, especially if you are interested to have a glimpse of Pakistan!
November 17, 2024
Felt like something I will appreciate at some later point in time.
January 24, 2023
A beautifully written memoir of a very interesting family.
November 26, 2022
Apart from the very personal memories descriptions of life in Islamabad in the 70s evoked for me in such a visceral way, this memoir is genius in the way in which Sorayya tells the multiple stories of her heritage using the social/emotional and physical architecture of the cities from which it all came. She powerfully navigates her way through the alienation and grief of the cities in which she 'should' feel at home - finding all the conflicting debris of all of our lives in such universal ways: resolution, curiosity, wonderment and yes also rejection.
February 27, 2023
This is not the usual type of book I read, but I entered a goodreads giveaway and won a paperback copy a while back. Well when I finally got around to reading it, I found that this book was incredible. I think more people should branch out into memoirs of people that are different from themselves. It's really good to see a perspective that you, yourself would have never viewed if not from another person's words, books, or podcasts.
January 5, 2024
It was touching to read a family friend’s story of such personal nature. Her ability to recount this family history in a stunning and poetic way is astounding. She effortlessly weaves together stories of multiple generations and geographical places, reminding us of how we are all interconnected. I am never disappointed by a Khan book and eagerly await her next works!
November 19, 2022
𝘌𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭!
Another fantastic memoir if you are looking to add some nonfiction to your list.
Moving, insightful, mesmerizing and impossible to put down.
Thank you @ohiostatepress for this gifted copy.
𝗪𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗨𝘀 by @sorayyakhan relased November 7, 2022.
Another fantastic memoir if you are looking to add some nonfiction to your list.
Moving, insightful, mesmerizing and impossible to put down.
Thank you @ohiostatepress for this gifted copy.
𝗪𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗨𝘀 by @sorayyakhan relased November 7, 2022.
November 6, 2022
Sorayya Khan packs rich and beautiful prose into a relatively short book. Great memoir - I would definitely recommend!
December 9, 2022
Written with poignant control, clarity, balance, and love for place and people!
June 11, 2023
It felt like reading a long essay that didn't always know what it was trying to say. I enjoyed glimpses into the family stories and how they differed across continents but it was dry at times.
July 3, 2024
Interesting read about cities wholly unfamiliar to me. Loved reading how places live inside and through Khan, and especially liked the first chapter about raising brown boys.
December 16, 2022
[Copy provided by publisher]
READ IF YOU...
• Believe in the power of place
• Like stories deeply rooted in cities
• Like complex, multi-national identities
I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A measured and thoughtful reflection of how to unpack the roots of a multi-national family. Starting with her own children growing up in Ithaca, New York, Khan traces her family back to her parents and grandparents. With a Dutch mother and a Pakistani father, Khan explores the places and cities that exude a big presence in her family's life.
This was a quiet memoir that captures well the impact of where we live on ourselves and our families. There are places Khan references as if they were people she knows, places that Khan quietly avoids because of the grief associated, and places that somehow fundamentally change who you are and how you act when you are in them.
Khan reconciles with all the cities she is from by going back in time to the places that defined her parents and even her grandparents. Her measured reflection, the interviews she recorded, and the time she spends with her mother toward the end as illness takes her are beautiful. The respect Khan shows to all of it is commendable. For those lucky enough to have a family story, may we all take the time to explore it with the care Khan does.
READ IF YOU...
• Believe in the power of place
• Like stories deeply rooted in cities
• Like complex, multi-national identities
I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A measured and thoughtful reflection of how to unpack the roots of a multi-national family. Starting with her own children growing up in Ithaca, New York, Khan traces her family back to her parents and grandparents. With a Dutch mother and a Pakistani father, Khan explores the places and cities that exude a big presence in her family's life.
This was a quiet memoir that captures well the impact of where we live on ourselves and our families. There are places Khan references as if they were people she knows, places that Khan quietly avoids because of the grief associated, and places that somehow fundamentally change who you are and how you act when you are in them.
Khan reconciles with all the cities she is from by going back in time to the places that defined her parents and even her grandparents. Her measured reflection, the interviews she recorded, and the time she spends with her mother toward the end as illness takes her are beautiful. The respect Khan shows to all of it is commendable. For those lucky enough to have a family story, may we all take the time to explore it with the care Khan does.
March 12, 2023
Although I enjoyed the content of this book, I was often frustrated by the flow. At times I could not follow at which moment in her life the author was speaking of. It appeared to be so intimate that it was meant for someone who experienced the events first-hand. I think with some improved editing, it could have been a masterpiece. I underlined many of the sentences in this book. Reminded me at times of Alexandra Fuller.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews