Farhana Sheikh is a British-Pakistani novelist, playwright and teacher. Farhana_Sheikh_in_Keele

Life

Farhana Sheikh was born in

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

, and brought up in

Putney Putney () is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ...

. A teacher and writer, she published her only novel, ''The Red Box'', in 1991. ''The Red Box'' is set in

East London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...

in the mid-1980s. The novel is "an investigation into diaspora British-Asian identities through the narratives of three women". It centres on a young Anglo-Pakistani woman, Raisa, and two school students, Nasreen and Tahira. The narrative "is loosely organised around the meetings of these three women as part of Raisa's academic research project enabling Sheikh to explore the memories, expectations and identities of the women and their families". The novel "charts the memories, lives and fantasies of these women" and "takes as its subject matter the legitimacy of political identification and affiliations" and "contests what it means to be British". Farhana Sheikh is also a playwright, who has worked particularly with th
London Bubble Theatre Company
and its Artistic Director Jonathan Petherbridge. With Adrian Jackson, she co-wrote ''Mincemeat'', a wartime thriller, performed by

Cardboard Citizens Cardboard Citizens is the UK's only homeless people's professional theatre company, and the leading practitioner of Forum Theatre (Augusto Boal), Forum Theatre and the Theatre of the Oppressed methodology in the UK. History and productions Cardb ...

and broadcast on

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

in 2010. She wrote the libretto for the oratorio
Gilgamesh
', by Thomas Johnson. Her adaptation of ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'', is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clerg ...

'' has been described as "the most successful" in the history of the stage. She was co-author of the verbatim pla
The Wrong Sort of Jew
first performed at Sands Studios London in 2023.

Works

* ''The Red Box'', 1991. London: Women's Press, 1991. * ''Tales from the Arabian Nights,'' 199

*''The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor,'' 1994. * ''Once Upon a Time, Very Far From England''. 199

* ''Gilgamesh'', a play 200

* ''Punchkin Enchanter,'' 200

* ''Gilgamesh, an oratorio.'' libretto, 2005. * ''Home, 2005.'' * ''The Flood, 2008.'' *
Mincemeat
' (with Adrian Jackson (theatre director), Adrian Jackson) London: Oberon Books, 2009. * ''Tales from the Arabian Nights,'' revised. 201

* ''Gulliver's Travels: a play by Farhana Sheikh after Jonathan Swift''. Brown Dog Books, 2020. * ''The Wrong Sort of Jew'' (with

John Graham Davies John Graham-Davies is a Canadian/British actor, writer, and left-wing political activist, most famous for playing Les Hunter (Hollyoaks), Les Hunter in the soap-opera ''Hollyoaks'' from 2001 to 2005. During his early career Graham-Davies was a ...

) 2023

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheikh, Farhana Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Writers from Lahore Pakistani emigrants to England British Asian writers 20th-century English novelists English women novelists English women dramatists and playwrights 21st-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English women 20th-century English people 21st-century English women 21st-century English people