Kazim Ali is a poet, editor, and prose writer born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian, Iranian and Egyptian descent. He has written several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award. His novels include Quinn’s Passage and The Disappearance of Seth. Titled for the influential singer left almost voiceless by a terrible syndrome, the poems in The Voice of Sheila Chandra (Alice James Books) bring sweet melodies and rhythms as the voices blend and become multitudinous. There’s an honoring of not only survival, but of persistence, as this part research-based, pensive collection contemplates what it takes to move forward when the unimaginable holds you back.
