Fairoz

By Moniza Alvi

Fairoz is a book-length poetry sequence in which Moniza Alvi explores an imagined teenage girl’s susceptibility to extremism. The book’s fragmented, collaging narrative draws together fairytale elements, glimpses of Fairoz’s thoughts, and pieces of dialogue. A folkloric representation of God and the devil acts as a wry counterpoint, touching on questions of morality. Fairoz is a powerful portrayal of human vulnerability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Mar 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781780376011

Moniza Alvi

Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. After working for many years as a secondary school teacher in London, she is now a freelance writer and tutor, and lives in Wymondham, Norfolk. All her poetry is published by Bloodaxe. Her most recent titles are Fairoz (2022), Blackbird, Bye Bye (2018); her book-length poem, At the Time of Partition (2013); Homesick for the Earth, her versions of the French poet Jules Supervielle (2011); Europa (2008); and Split World: Poems 1990-2005 (2008), which includes poems from her five previous collections, The Country at My Shoulder (1993), A Bowl of Warm Air (1996), Carrying My Wife (2000), Souls (2002) and How the Stone Found Its Voice (2005). The Country at My Shoulder was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread poetry prizes, and Carrying My Wife was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Europa and At the Time of Partition were selected as Poetry Book Society Choices in 2008 and 2013 respectively and both were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Moniza Alvi received a Cholmondeley Award in 2002. A collection of her poems was published in Italy by Donzelli Editore in their Poesia series in 2014, Un mondo diviso, translated by Paola Splendore.

Book preview

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MONIZA ALVI

FAIROZ

Fairoz is a book-length poetry sequence in which Moniza Alvi explores an imagined teenage girl’s susceptibility to extremism. The book’s fragmented, collaging narrative draws together fairytale elements, glimpses of Fairoz’s thoughts, and pieces of dialogue. A folkloric representation of God and the devil acts as a wry counterpoint, touching on questions of morality. Fairoz is a powerful portrayal of human vulnerability.

‘She is a skilled storyteller, recounting the extraordinary in the voice of the everyday, so that we accept the miraculous as something we need…the overriding impression is of a deft, restrained language carrying ideas with a metaphysical wit and seriousness.’ – Leonie Rushforth, London Magazine

‘One of the few British poets whose work could currently be described as essential reading, not least as we try to grasp what fractures of cultural difference might have contributed to the July 7 bombings.’ – Tim Robertson, Magma

‘Europa made the most difference to me as a writer. It showed me one way of writing about trauma and violence, how to circle around a central concern and explore it from different angles.’ – Kim Moore, The North

Cover painting: Conflict (1975) by Laila Shahzada (1926-2004) PERMANENT COLLECTION OF THE JORDAN NATIONAL GALLERY OF FINE ARTS2

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MONIZA ALVI

Fairoz

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CONTENTS

title page

Driving the devil away

In the present tense

Indoors

Hair

What do you do with a heap of stones?

‘It was a house of female habitation’

Questions in the wood

The Devil and the gleams

The Devil’s soup

The white cat

Not enchantment

In the morning

Home

Fairoz and Annat

As summer

School lunchtimes

Listening to Fairoz and Tahir

Pilgrims

Does the Devil know what he is?

The notice

When they meet

A story of God and the Devil

Ripe

Wolves-of-the-woods

What runs under her skin

She pictures Jannah

Absent and present6

Her absences

‘where the swarm is thickest’

The dark patch

The plants

It was long ago

A conversation

A punch

Ice age

He’s ‘v v sorry’

The short long story

The loping wolf

A tale reduced to a sliver

God’s eyelids

This woman will speak to you, he says

The bride

Gone

A