'An adroit genealogical inquiry, a wise meditation on the confusions and compulsions that make up an individual . . . Sardar's captivating narrative constitutes a rebellion against the geographical truth of a country created by dissection.'
'This is a British cultural critic's impassioned reflection on identity, his own and Pakistan's, against the backdrop of the country's tumultuous 71-year-old history.'
'In the twenty-first century, migration, faith, and identity are disrupting nations and dividing peoples around the globe. Ziauddin Sardar uses his own life to understand and illustrate the complexities and profundities of these forces with unbearable lightness and also emotion, honesty, beauty and wit. Sardar's birthplace, Pakistan, causes him much aggravation, but the nation's heartbeat echoes his own, and he is made by its long civilisation. And still deeply affected by its story. He is cosmopolitan and thoroughly grounded. This wonderful book balances the two sides with panache and integrity. It's the way we must all learn to live.' -- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, author of 'Exotic England: The Making of a Curious Nation'
'Ziauddin Sardar's journey is emblematic for our age of tragically hardening borders. A compassionately critical thinker about faith and nationality, Sardar was born in Pakistan and made his life in London, becoming an acclaimed scholar and writer. He reminds us that we now live in a world in which passports, visas and identities can be switched in a single second from Exempted to Cancelled.' -- Ruth Padel, Professor of Poetry at King's College London, author of 'On Migration', 'Tigers in Red Weather' and 'Emerald'
'Where so often Pakistan and Pakistanis are presented in a one-dimensional way through the prism of the latest crisis or bad news story, A Person of Pakistani Origins provides a complex, inter-generational, humorous, and deeply personal account of the many ways to be a British Pakistani.' -- Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, author of 'The Enemy Within: A Tale of Muslim Britain'
