Dr. Sadia Abbas' The Empty Room

<p>SWANA Collective member David Lloyd sits down to discuss <em>The Empty Room </em>with Author Sadia Abbas. Set in Pakistan from&nbsp;1969 &nbsp;to about 1979, the novel tells the story of Tahira, a woman who is a &nbsp;painter but finds herself trapped in an unhappy marriage facing hostile &nbsp;in-laws. Her story coincides with a crucial period in Pakistani history, &nbsp;the uprising in Bangladesh that would lead both to brutal repression by &nbsp;the Pakistani army in which half a million or more people are &nbsp;estimated to have been killed and to the independence of Bangladesh, &nbsp;formerly Pakistan’s eastern province. This was a period of political &nbsp;possibility—for which Tahira’s left-wing brother Waseem struggles—but &nbsp;also one that laid the groundwork for the subsequent brutal dictatorship &nbsp;of&nbsp;General Zia-ul-Haq.</p> <p>Sadia &nbsp;Abbas is a Professor of English and of Women’s and Gender Studies at &nbsp;Rutgers University, Newark. She is also the author of <em>At Freedom’s Limit</em>:&nbsp;<em>Islam and the Postcolonial Predicament</em>&nbsp;(Fordham &nbsp;University Press, 2014), which won the modern Language Association’s &nbsp;First Book Prize. Her commentaries on contemporary Pakistan and on &nbsp;Europe’s treatment of refugees and migrants can be found in&nbsp;<em>Dawn</em>,&nbsp;<em>Counterpunch</em>,&nbsp;<em>Tank</em> Magazine, and other publications. She is co-editor of the Ideas and Futures blog: https://ideasandfutures.com/</p>