Muslim women’s writing about love

Posted on 8 September 2020

Professor Claire Chambers has recently published a co-edited book of short stories by Muslim women of South Asian heritage writing about love and desire.

Entitled A Match Made in Heaven, the volume was brought out in late August by a London-based independent publisher. HopeRoad is committed to publishing diverse and transcultural perspectives.

The stories came out of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project, Storying Relationships, run out of the University of Sheffield by Professor Richard Phillips. Some of them were produced in workshops held in Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, and Glasgow, while others were specially commissioned from well-known writers including Shelina Janmohamed, Roopa Farooki, and Ayisha Malik.

Claire appeared (alongside a co-editor Dr Nafhesa Ali and one of the authors, Noren Haq) on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour to talk about the book. You can ‘Listen Again’ to the interview here, from around the 28 minute mark.

The book deals with a range of issues including dating, marriage, divorce, same-sex desire, and how technology is changing ideas about romance.

Claire, who has been the Department's Graduate Chair for the last two years, said, 'I was really pleased to have the opportunity to talk to Jane Garvey about this diverse, humorous, and profound collection of stories. It was such a privilege to work with sixteen extremely talented women writers, some of them very experienced and others new voices publishing for the first time'.