The Roles We Play
Sabba Khan
We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.
To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.
From the publisher
WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE 2022
‘Where is home, Mum?’
Two-thirds of today’s British Pakistani diaspora trace their origins back to Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, a district that saw mass displacement and migration when it was submerged by the waters of a dam built after Partition. Sabba Khan’s debut graphic memoir explores what identity, belonging and memory mean for her and her family against the backdrop of this history. She paints a vivid snapshot of contemporary British Asian life and investigates the complex shifts experienced by different generations within migrant communities.
Khan’s eloquent minimal style and architectural page design illuminates her experiences of growing up as a second generation Azad Kashmiri migrant in East London. Issues of race, gender and class are brought to the forefront in a simple and personal narrative. The title of the book nods to the questions Khan explores: can religion and secularism, tradition and trend, heritage and progression move beyond a limited binary definition and toward a common space of love and understanding, and ultimately toward a pluralistic approach?
The Roles We Play was shortlisted for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition 2018, and the Jhalak Prize 2022, and longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. Now published in the US and Canada with the title What Is Home, Mum?, it won a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly and was discussed by Calvin Reid and Meg Lemke on the PW Comics World podcast 514.