Seeing For Ourselves — Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

Reflections on seeing and being seen.

‘A beautiful consideration of devotion to faith, family and politics … Manzoor-Khan’s exacting thoughtfulness shines throughout.’
— The Skinny

Why do we yearn to be seen when we are already far too visible? How do we want to be perceived, and how are we exposed? Could we ever really see for ourselves?

In memoir, vignettes, poetry and essays, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan records her observations from the stands at the dizzying circus of being seen and unseen. She surveys the criminalising stadium of civic life, the open-air arenas of family, friendship and grief, the performative pageantry of the public eye and the unclad secrets of the self in solitude, paying attention to what’s on show and what goes undetected.

Perhaps the strangest, most exciting possibilities are opened when we surrender to another kind of sight. Submitting to the gaze of the Unseen and the All-Seeing, Manzoor-Khan invites us to close our eyes and discover what it would mean to look with our souls instead.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a poet and writer whose work disrupts assumptions about history, race, violence and knowledge. She is the author of Tangled in Terror and the poetry collection Postcolonial Banter; a co-author of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University; and a contributor to the anthologies Cut from the Same Cloth? and I Refuse to Condemn. She is based in Leeds and is currently writing for theatre.

‘To read this expansive treasure of a book is to see everything differently.’
— Sabrina Mahfouz, author of These Bodies of Water

‘A gift and a blessing for anyone who has ever faced invisibility and over-scrutiny at the same time … In these loving pages, we are encouraged to want more and see ourselves for ourselves.’
— Muneera Pilgrim, author of That Day She’ll Proclaim Her Chronicles

‘Moves the heart and provokes thought in equal measure.’
— Preti Taneja, author of Aftermath

‘A rare treat … we witness a profound thinker and remarkable poet at work.’
— Arun Kundnani, author of What Is Antiracism?

‘Utterly disruptive. With grace and vulnerability … Manzoor-Khan upends the conversation on representational politics.’
— Waithera Sebatindira, author of Through an Addict’s Looking-Glass