‘What if writing drew a circle around us … whispered aloud, and said in our hearts, both at once—to clean the blood, yes. This is that, written in a vernacular for us as we sit in our cities, dreaming of burning palms.’ — Zarina Muhammad, The White Pube
Join us for this remarkable discussion with Jamal Mehmood and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan on The Leaf of the Neem Tree, a meditative book contemplating turbulence and repose.
Known for their bitter taste, neem leaves have been used for centuries in South Asian traditional medicine. Weaving free verse and ghazal, English with Urdu, this impeccable collection deals in the alchemy of introspection—the quietness of loss, longing, memory and spirituality.
‘Stirringly compassionate … somehow captures the sentiment of Urdu poetry in the context of British capitalism’s brutalising drudgery.’ — Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, author of Postcolonial Banter
Jamal Mehmood is a London-based poet, writer and filmmaker whose work has been featured by the BBC, Magma, Popula, Hikaayat and Media Diversified. His film Muriid was released in 2021 by the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the BBC as part of the New Creatives scheme.
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is an educator, writer, cultural producer and poet. She is the author of the poetry collection Postcolonial Banter and co-author of the anthology A Fly Girl’s Guide to University. Suhaiymah has written for The Guardian, The Independent, Al-Jazeera and gal-dem, among others, and her work has featured across radio and TV. She hosts the Breaking Binaries podcast.
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