It Begins With The Body

By Hana Shafi

It Begins With The Body by Hana Shafi explores the milestones and hurdles of a brown girl coming into her own. Shafi's poems display a raw and frank intimacy and address anxiety, unemployment, heartbreak, relationships, identity, and faith.

Accompanied by Shafi's candid illustrations that share the same delightful mixture of grotesque and humour found in her poems, It Begins With The Body navigates the highs and lows of youth. It is about feeling like an outsider, and reconciling with pain and awkwardness. It's about arguing with your mum about wanting to wax off your unibrow to the first time you threw up in a bar in your twenties, and everything in between. Funny and raw, personal and honest, Shafi's exciting debut is about finding the right words you wished you had found when you needed them the most.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: Sep 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781771664448

Book preview

first edition

Copyright © 2018 by Hana Shafi

all rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Book*hug also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

Book*hug acknowledges the land on which it operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Shafi, Hana, 1993-, author, illustrator

It begins with the body / poems & illustrations, Hana Shafi. -- First edition.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77166-443-1 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77166-444-8 (HTML).--

ISBN 978-1-77166-445-5 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-77166-446-2 (Kindle)

I. Title.

PS8637.H345I83 2018 C811’.6 C2018-904017-3

C2018-904018-1

cover image by Hana Shafi

author photograph by Dylan van den Berge

To Mummy and Baba and Naz. Without you, there are no stories to tell.

To my best friends, who said every day I could do this, I could make it.

To every little brown girl with dreams so big the world can barely contain them.

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One: It Begins With The Body

when will it be over?

body talk

fences he built

romantic comedies with