Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love

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These are stories of fierce clarity and tenderness – I loved them’ LUCY CALDWELL, author of Intimacies

Other stories in the collection are diligent, sometimes close to sentimental: a tale about a student friendship gone awry in adulthood and another about a couple coping with repeat miscarriages are sensitive, seem personal and yet are thinly written. Qureshi is feeling her way with this form, and it’s to her credit that so many of these stories succeed. It’s a form she clearly reveres, with the titular allusion to Raymond Carver, and there is a whiff of Alice Munro in Qureshi’s sadly estranged mothers and daughters. A unique tale that interweaves crime fiction with intimate tales of morality and search for individual freedom.In this rich collection of stories, Huma Qureshi shows us the truth, mess and beauty of humans trying - and often failing - to understand each other. Just like love itself, her stories are full of honesty and mystery, pain and hope, and the memories we think we've forgotten, but that still steer our hearts. I'm still thinking about them. And Huma Qureshi is a writer I know I'll be reading for years and years and years. After recently having lost my own mother, I find myself gravitating towards reads that explore mother/daughter relationships as it provides me with a sense of comfort I can’t quite articulate. Going into Quereshi’s collection, I had no idea what to expect & as always it was the best thing as I am so blown away & cannot sing it’s praises high enough. Huma Qureshi is a writer I know I'll be reading for years and years and years' Natasha Lunn, author of Conversations on Love First, I must say that I would never have heard of the brilliant writer, Huma Qureshi, without reading a wonderful review of this collection of short stories by my goodreads’ friend, Paromjit. Her review inspired me to read this book, so thank you, Paromjit. Because I am not tech savvy, I have no idea how to properly thank her, so I will encourage my fellow readers to read this book. The first story, Premonition, explores the idea of damaging gossip in the desi community, its negative impacts on a girl's life, and how life comes full circle. It is a thought provoking story and set the momentum right.

One of the strongest stories – and surely the most heartbreaking – takes the perspective of one of Qureshi’s forceful mothers, Shaheen, who remains oblivious to how she smothers her daughter. The author renders her incomprehension painfully acute, while allowing the reader to see the big picture Shaheen misses. An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from Caleb Azumah Nelson, the no.1 bestselling, award-winning author of Open WaterFrom the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across England, France and Spain. It would have been the perfect summer; if not for my father’s death” – from the first lines, short story collection Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love, by Huma Qureshi, grabs attention with its simplicity and intimate honesty. With disarming frankness the author writes about real life, ordinary people, and their relationships with themselves and others. These stories are short and bittersweet, they tug at your heart strings. Lots of them centre on the divisions, the rifts, the distance that forms in familial and romantic relationships and friendship. How literally the things we do not say create divides so they're not necessarily always comfortable reads as they made my stomach clench in mild anxiety at the underlying tensions.

Qureshi's stories keenly identify the everyday tragedies of feeling profoundly unknown or unheard, of holding secrets and misunderstandings . . . These tales vividly capture the experience of feeling constrained by family expectations, but also of not quite fitting the norms of British culture either . . . Qureshi takes the reader plausibly inside the inner recesses of characters' hearts and minds. Premonition beautifully recalls the intensity of a first crush, developed via a private symphony of glances, before a bewildering first kiss leads to disaster. And she captures how such incidents can, in adulthood, seem insignificant and still life-defining . . . there are so many striking images to relish. -- Holly Williams * Observer *A luscious debut . . Qureshi is a dab hand at yanking the rug out from under the reader. Her immersive, poignant stories - written mostly in understated prose - often have a sting in the tale . . I fell for this lyrical, moving collection and the woozy intensity that infuses many of its stories. Qureshi creates gripping plotlines and vividly drawn characters and - most importantly - she is a writer with something to say. -- Gwendolyn Smith * i * The most pointed clue, though, is the book that Tasneem delightedly discovers while browsing the market stall: a “nearly new copy of the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories translated into English”. It’s a hat-tip to their editor, Jhumpa Lahiri – another writer of south Asian heritage quietly reimagining the shape of the short story. When Simon thoughtlessly leaves the volume to be soaked by rain in the garden, Tasneem feels her “heart dip like a moth falling away from a bright light”. Qureshi, like Lahiri, is a companionable and considered writer, and this is a collection you can read enjoyably, rain or shine.