Lahore

Culture clash: Things We Don’t Tell the People We Love, by Huma Qureshi, reviewed

Apart from what the title tells us, these stories are about a fundamental difference in cultures. Huma Qureshi writes like a psychotherapist, considering, analysing, explaining, seeking out conflicts, evasions, and discomforts. The clash is between London and Lahore, Britain and Pakistan. The girls who appear in these tales are westernised, but still hostages to their heritage. The narrator of ‘Superstition’ escapes the shalwar kameez that she has to wear at family dinners on Saturday evenings in suburban London. She is smitten with a boy at a neighbour’s house, and then endures a conspiracy of male, religious dominance: ‘All this happened over an unfortunate teenage kiss.’ If there is fault, it