There is an incredibly smart sassiness to her writing... a perpetual tongue-in-cheek naughtiness to her stories, wickedly cajoling you to read between the lines, to peel the layers off, to discern the nuanced hidden. The stories are short and concise, but the meaning, the interpretation and the understanding of each one may be multi-dimensional and multiple-layered.
"No norteamericanos, no story" is the sentiment Baldwin's startling collection wishes to dispel. . . unfamiliar voices that challenge our sanguine perceptions about society. . . Baldwin throws
herself way out there.
Toronto Star review Jan 2008
Quill and Quire has selected We Are Not in Pakistan as a Book of the Year 2007. Quill and Quire review.
"a brilliant narrator who has the knack of getting under the skin of her characters as she runs her stories around people caught in regular circumstances. They are no heroes, nor are there extraordinary situations, but in their fight they emerge closest to being just that."
If you are a writer; study these stories. If you are a reader; relax and enjoy them. If you are both; count your lucky stars, you're in for an wonderful ride.
Judy Bridges, Milwaukee Home magazine.
CanIndia interview (pg 8)
Shauna re WE ARE NOT IN PAKISTAN
WE ARE NOT IN PAKISTAN transmits the new world order... The prose has a slow, molten rhythm . . . Baldwin is asking, "What is home? What is citizenship?" . . .she becomes her characters . . . . a pitch perfect dreamscape. WE ARE NOT IN PAKISTAN is that book that shakes up the prettiness of much of the Canlit landscape. It wants to be global, and in this it succeeds.
Globe and Mail
"Baldwin displays an uncanny knack for getting under the reader's skin and stirring a potent cocktail of empathy, sadness, pity and rage . . .
She has a gift for dialogue - an almost musical
ear. . . her writing is so strong and so consistent that she'll make you forget you're reading.
And that alone is worth the price of entry."
Montreal Gazette
"A chain of tales that has not a single weak link. . .
Shauna Singh Baldwin's writing is, quite simply, brilliant. She finds the unique voice of each character and lets him or her speak, as vivid personalities are discovered rather than created.
The stories are collaborations between author and character. This collection is a dazzling
achievement by a gifted storyteller."
Ralph Higgins, Atlantic Books Today
"...[a] determined and accomplished success...
Baldwin's stories are so compelling as to make me wish they'd go on to become novels, which of course they are not, so that what remains is only to read them again and again, and then look forward to her next collection."
"It's this urge to make people more understanding of cultures different from their own that lies at the heart of Ms. Singh's new collection of short stories, We are Not in Pakistan…Every story concerns someone who has moved from what they have been familiar with before, to coming to terms with their new situation."
ShaunaSinghBaldwin.com
Other Writers Say
“Shauna Singh Baldwin’s collection of stories is potent, poignant, disturbing, and of immense importance at this point in time. She examines the intersection of private lives with political and cultural convulsions. She illuminates terrorism for us: not just the terrorism of the media, but the invisible and horrifically costly terrorism of racist paranoia.
I can’t think of a more valuable book for our dangerous times.”
— Janette Turner Hospital, author of
Orpheus Lost, Due Preparations for the Plague, Borderlines.
Shauna Singh Baldwin's stories in We are not in Pakistan are engaging and enlightening, international in scope. Baldwin's wonderful eye for detail and her clear, elegant prose bring the daily realities of these estranged characters to life—daily realities that are often profoundly affected by horrific events such as Chernobyl and 9/11.
A wonderful collection.
—Sandra Gulland, author of the Josephine B. Trilogy
Hard hitting and complex, these stories resonate long after you've read them.
— Anjana Appachana
author of
Incantations and Other Stories, and
Listening Now: a novel
