Shahnaz Habib
Shahnaz Habib
Travel | Essays
Shahnaz Habib is a writer and translator based in Brooklyn. She translates from her mother tongue, the south Indian language of Malayalam, and has translated two novels by Benyamin, Jasmine Days, winner of the 2018 JCB Prize, and Al Arabian Novel Factory. Airplane Mode is her first book.
‘A lively and wide-ranging book … Habib [is a] ruthlessly honest and funny observer.’
NEW YORK TIMES
‘Should be required reading.’
LOS ANGELES TIMES
‘Habib is also brilliant at evoking the quieter pleasures of travel – discovering Brooklyn’s gently unfolding geography when she takes long bus rides, her baby in a sling, as well as travelling to Ethiopia. One afternoon, she sits on a rock by the Blue Nile watching birds playing in a waterfall. “I had always thought of curiosity as a human impulse, but it was, in fact, an animal impulse,” she goes on. “We inherited it from the birds, this need to see for oneself what the world was like.”’
Financial Times
READ MORE REVIEWS
‘Compelling, witty, nuanced and frankly devastating on the ways that many ways that colonialism is embedded in the experience of travel.’
Jini Reddy, author of Wanderland
‘May I suggest this enjoyably bracing personal and cultural history of travel.’
Editor’s Choice, Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
‘Fresh, thought-provoking and funny.’
Michael Kerr, Deskbound Traveller
‘A memorable and unique travelogue that explores … the world through the lens of colonialism, capitalism and climate change.’
DEBUTIFUL
‘Insightful, funny, moving, politically astute …’
International Examiner
‘Fascinating, wide-ranging and insightful … who gets to travel and what makes us so keen to travel in the first place?’
ANNABEL ABBS, author of WINDSWEPT and SLEEPLESS
‘In interweaving the personal and political stakes of travelling as a migrant, Habib gives us an urgently needed reimagining of the genre.’
JESSICA J. LEE, author of DISPERSALS
‘An enlightening and entertaining debut essay collection.’
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
‘With a perceptive eye and in fluid, intimate prose, Habib nimbly demonstrates how “the more we dig into the history of modern tourism, the more the pickax hits the underground cable connection with colonialism.” Jet-setters will be captivated and challenged.’
