Shamshad Khan (born 1964,

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

) is a widely anthologised

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

-based poet. Khan was born in

in 1964 in a

Pakistani Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...

family which later relocated to

. Khan's poems have been published in anthologies including ''Flame'', ''Poetry of Rebellion'', ''The Fire People'' (1998), ''Bittersweet'' (1999), ''Healing Strategies for Women at War'', ''Gargoyle'', ''Longman’s GCSE Poems for your Pocket'', ''Velocity'' and Redbeck Press’ anthology of British South Asian poets. Her 1994 short story, ‘The Woman and the Chair’ received critical acclaim. She has performed her work widely, and been broadcast on local and national radio in the UK including the BBC's Radio 4’s Love Thang and Woman’s Hour. Khan has also worked as an editor on an anthology of black women’s poetry and advised the

Arts Council of England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bo ...

North West on literature. She also presented a Radio 4 programme on the

Qaṣīda al-Burda ''Qasīdat al-Burda'' (, "Ode of the Mantle"), or ''al-Burda'' for short, is a thirteenth-century ode of praise for Muhammad composed by the Shadhili mystic al-Busiri of Egypt. The poem, whose actual title is "The Celestial Lights in Praise of ...

(also known as The Poem of the Cloak).The Poem of the Cloak

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

, 5 July 2007. Accessed 14 September 2010.

Books

* 'The Woman and the Chair', in R. Ahmad and R. Gupta, eds., ''Flaming Spirits''. London: Virago Press. * (ed. with Marie Guise Williams and Tang Line) ''Healing Strategies for Women at War: Seven black women poets''. Manchester: Crocus Books, 1999. * Khan, Shamshad (2007) Megalomaniac, (Salt Modern Poets), Salt Publishing ( )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Shamshad Living people Place of birth missing (living people) English people of Pakistani descent English women poets Writers from Leeds Writers from Manchester Alumni of the University of Manchester 1964 births