Suhayl Saadi

Suhayl Saadi (b. 23 October 1961, Beverley, Yorkshire)cite web |url= http://www.paisley.org.uk/famous_people/suhayl_saadi.php |title= Successful in their own right: People from Paisley, Scotland |format= html |work= [http://www.paisley.org.uk/index.php Paisley on the web: OOR PAISLEY] |quote= ] cite news |url= http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20040404/ai_n12587975 |title= Fable bodied |author= Alan Taylor |format= html |work= The Sunday Herald |date= 4 April 2004 |quote= ] is a physician,cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4276051.stm |title= Interview with Dr. Suhayl Saadi: Patients influenced my writing |author= Jane Elliott |format= html |work= BBC News |date= 21 February 2005 |quote= ] author and dramatist based in Glasgow, Scotland. His varied literary outputcite web |url= http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth5688A1010f0421D601nXm1C28A1E |title= Biography, Genres, Bibliography, Prizes & Awards |format= html |work= British Council Arts |quote= ] includes novels, short stories,cite news |url= http://www.storyglossia.com/two/ss_pier.html |title= The Pier |author= Suhayl Saadi |format= html |work= Storyglossia online literary magazine [http://www.storyglossia.com/two/cover.html Issue 2, May 2003] |quote= ] cite news |url= http://www.storyglossia.com/three/ss_braga.html |title= Braga |author= Suhayl Saadi |format= html |work= Storyglossia online literary magazine [http://www.storyglossia.com/three/cover.html Issue 3, June 2003] |quote= ] anthologies of fiction, song lyrics, plays for stage and radio theatre, and wisdom pieces for "The Dawn Patrol," the Sarah Kennedy show on BBC Radio 2.

Works

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quote=Psychoraag is not just
"Midnight's Children"-meets-"Trainspotting".
Saadi is more thoughtful than Welsh or Rushdie.
source= Angus Calder, "The Sunday Herald" cite news |url= http://sarmed.netfirms.com/suhayl/NEW/books/psycho/calder_review.htm |title= Reviews: Saadi's all the rag |author= Angus Calder |format= html |work= The Sunday Herald |date= 25 April 2004 |quote= 'Namaste ji, salaam alaikum, sat sri akal, welcome tae The Junoon Show. Ah’m Zaf, zed ayy eff – an yer listenin’ tae Radio Chaandnii oan wavelength 99.9 meters ... ' When Suhayl Saadi’s collection of short stories "The Burning Mirror" appeared three years ago, grateful readers noticed, among his very varied prose repertoire, a superb ear for Scottish speech. In his first novel, the ventriloquist goes his dinger. Zaf’s idiolect mingles Weegie patter with phrases and curses from several sub-continental languages, French, Gaelic, and, of course, guid auld Scots. ] |Saadi's 2004 novel,cite news |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/frontrow/frontrow_20040514.shtml |title= Suhayl Saadi talks about "Psychoraag," his 2004 novel set in an Asian community radio station in Glasgow during a six hour show. |format= html |work= Front Row, BBC Radio 4 |date= 14 May 2004 |quote= ] cite web |url= http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Books/Psychoraag-1845020626/Reviews |title= Reviews of "Psychoraag" on Books From Scotland |format= html |quote= ] "Psychoraag," which won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, was also shortlistedcite web |url= http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/050131jamestaitblack.html |title= James Tait Black Prizes |format= html |work= University of Edinburgh News & Events |date= 31 January 2005 |quote= ] for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and nominated for both the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Awardcite web |url= http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2006/Titles/Saadi.htm |title= The 2006 Award: "Psychoraag" by Suhayl Saadi nominated |format= html |work= The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award |quote= ] and the National Literary Award (the Patras Bokhari Prize) in Pakistan.

The Scottish Book Trust designated "Psychoraag" one of the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time.cite web |url= http://www.list.co.uk/bestbooks/bestbookslist.html |title= 100 Best Scottish Books of All Time |format= html |work= The List: Scottish Book Trust |quote= ] The French translation was released in November 2007 by the Paris-based publisher Éditions Métailié.cite web |url= http://www.editions-metailie.com/indoc/psychoraag-de-suhayl-saadi-T919.htm |title= Bibliothèque écossaise: "Psychoraag" |author= Traduit de l'anglais par Jean-Charles Perquin et Samuel Baudry |publisher= Éditions Métailié, November 2007. ISBN 978-2-86424-629-9 |date= in French |quote= ]

Suhayl Saadi has written about subjects as diverse as psychedelic music, Sufism, the British pantomime, the future of creativity, and the relationship of literature to global politics, for many periodicals, including "The Independent," "The Times," "The Herald," "The Sunday Herald," "The Scotsman," and "Spike Magazine,"cite news |url= http://www.spikemagazine.com/0206-suhayl-saadi-censorship-in-the-uk.php |title= The Gods of the Door: Literary Censorship in the UK |author= Suhayl Saadi |format= html |work= Spike Magazine |date= February 2006 |quote= I should say that I am very lucky to be based in Scotland - a country which has produced many wonderful writers of fiction, including, in recent years, Irvine Welsh, James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway, J. K. Rowling, A. L. Kennedy, Ali Smith, Louise Welsh, Alexander McCall Smith, Iain Banks, Ian Rankin and many more (the list grows longer very year). This corpus of work represents some of the most exciting, commercially successful and ground-breaking writing of the past three decades in the Anglophone world. Coda: Scotland is not a literary backwater. ] and for the British Council. His short story collection, "The Burning Mirror,"cite news |url= http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20010819/ai_n13961756 |title= Edinburgh Book Festival Footnotes: Celtic Writers for Breakfast |format= html |work= The Sunday Herald |date= 19 August 2001 |quote= Suhayl Saadi, who appears on tomorrow's Celtic Writers for Breakfast bill together with Aonghas MacNeacail and Luke Sutherland, is the author of The "Burning Mirror," a debut collection of short stories. Chris Dolan rightly describes it as "an impossible blend of Kelman, Toni Davidson and Rushdie. There is rhythm and blending of languages that is uniquely Scots-Asian." Saadi is a medical man whose story "Ninety-nine Kiss-o-grams" was shortlisted for the Macallan short story competition. Uniquely he provides a glossary of Pakistani and Glaswegian words for those who might find navigation difficult. ] cite news |url= http://www.barcelonareview.com/rev/28.htm |title= Review of "The Burning Mirror" |author= Jill Adams |format= html |work= [http://www.barcelonareview.com/eng/ed.htm The Barcelona Review] Issue 28: January-February 2002 |quote= In "Ninety-nine Kiss-o-grams," the opening story, Sal is left a deed from his grandfather to a bit of land in Pakistan. He travels there to sell the worthless dirt plot and his running commentary in heavy Scottish dialect on his family’s native land proves an extraordinary (and epiphanous) reading experience: "Nuthin wis certain here, Nuthin. Mibbee you were alive, mibbee you were dead. Mibbee there was a God, mibbee there were ten thousand. Everyone had a different version of everything, and nothin wis written doon." Trying to picture this man - looking as Pakistani as the natives around him, but speaking in such a strange tongue - is a disturbing, incongruous experience that jars the reader into a recognition of the cultural crossroad at which the narrator finds himself. ] was shortlisted for the Saltire Society First Book Prize in 2001.

Saadi has written stage and radio plays including "The Dark Island", "The White Cliffs" and "Saame Sita." He has edited or co-edited a number of anthologies including "Shorts: The Macallan Scotland on Sunday Short Story Collection;" "A Fictional Guide to Scotland;" and "Freedom Spring: Ten Years On," a compilation of new writing from South Africa and Scotland. He has appeared widely on television, radio and in public literary readings and is currently working on another novel.

Suhayl Saadi has also written song lyrics for classical and folk-rock musical ensembles, including the Edinburgh-based Dunedin Consort, [ [http://www.dunedin-consort.org.uk/ Dunedin Consort] ] and for the Africa-centred World AIDS Day Project Paradisum.cite web |url= http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=30327 |title= (Article about Project Paradisum) |author= Yüksel Söylemez |format= html |work= Turkish Daily News |date= December 11 2005 |quote= ] His work has appeared in translation in anthologies, as in 2006 in German in "Cool Britannia" (Al Kennedy, ed. Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach).

Among more recent works, Saadi wrote the libretto for "Queens of Govan", one of five short operas commissioned in 2007 by the Scottish Opera for its 2008 "Five:15" project.cite web |url= http://www.scottishopera.org.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=209&Itemid=72 |title= Five:15 - Operas Made in Scotland |author= Scottish Opera |quote= "Queens of Govan": Nigel Osborne, Wajahat Khan and Suhayl Saadi’s work for Five:15 features a young Asian girl who is running through the streets of Govan on a rainy Saturday night, late for her job at a kebab shop. As she runs, she is pursued by images and realities from her parallel lives such as the green valleys of Kashmir and the dark waters of the Clyde. ] cite web |url= http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.2039389.0.Five_first_nights_in_an_hour_and_a_quarter.php |title= Five first nights in an hour and a quarter |author= Michael Tumelty |work= The Herald |date= February 13 2008 |quote= The creative teams include some big names in their own fields ... writers, authors and poets Ian Rankin, Bernard MacLaverty, Alexander McCall Smith, Ron Butlin and Suhayl Saadi, paired respectively with composers Craig Armstrong, Gareth Williams, Stephen Deazley, Lyell Cresswell and Nigel Osborne. ] cite web |url= http://www.scotsman.com/performing-arts/Curtain-up-on--15minute.3829783.jp |title= Curtain up on 15-minute operas as big names aim for the wow factor |author= Tim Cornwell |work= The Scotsman |date= 29 February 2008 |quote= ] cite web |url= http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article3471115.ece |title= Five:15 at Oran Mor, Glasgow |author= Richard Morrison |work= The Times |date= March 3 2008 |quote= ]

Saadi is a board member and co-director of the arts production company Heer Productions Limited, which established the Pakistani Film, Media and Arts Festival [ [http://www.pakistanifilmfest.com Pakistani Film, Media, and Arts Festival] ] in the United Kingdom in 2005.

Bibliography

;Books
* 2004: "Psychoraag." Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing. Hardcover: ISBN 1-845-02010-3. Paperback: ISBN 1-845-02062-6.
* 2004: "The White Cliffs." Dingwall: Sandstone Press. ISBN 0-954-63331-8.
* 2001: "The Burning Mirror." Edinburgh: Polygon Books. Paperback: ISBN 0-748-66293-6, ISBN 978-0748662937.
* 1997: "The Snake." (Under the pen name Melanie Desmoulins.) Creation Books. Paperback: ISBN 1-871-59282-8.

;Plays
* 2006: "Garden of the Fourteenth Moon."
* 2005: "The White Cliffs." Glasgow.
* 2004: "The Dark Island." London, BBC Radio 4.
* 2003: "Saame Sita." Edinburgh.

;Librettos
* 2007: "Queens of Govan", libretto, Scottish Opera Five:15 project.cite web |url= http://www.musicalcriticism.com/opera/sco-five-0308.shtml |title= Scottish Opera - "Five:15" |author= Mary Robb |work= MusicalCriticism.com: classical music and opera reviews by musicians and musicologists |month= March | year= 2008 |quote= ]

;Anthologies
* 2005: "Freedom Spring: Ten Years On." Editors: Suhayl Saadi, Catherine McInerney. New Lanark: Waverley Books. Paperback: ISBN 1-902-40733-4, ISBN 978-1902407333.
* 2003: "A Fictional Guide to Scotland." Editors: Meaghan Delahunt, Suhayl Saadi, Elizabeth Reeder. Glasgow: OpenInk. Paperback: ISBN 0-954-55600-3, ISBN 978-0954556006.
* 2003: "Shorts: The Macallan Scotland on Sunday Short Story Collection." Editor: Suhayl Saadi. Edinburgh: Polygon Books. Paperback: ISBN 0-748-66329-0, ISBN 978-0748663293.

;Novellas
* 2006: "The Saelig Tales." In "Magic Afoot," the first print edition of "Textualities" magazine.cite web |url= http://www.textualities.net/editorial/magic.php |title= "Magic Afoot: the first print issue of "Textualities" magazine" |format= html |work= Textualities, April 2006 |quote= ] ISBN 0-955-28960-2, ISBN 978-0955289606.
* 2005: "The Aerodrome." Dingwall: Sandstone Press. Paperback: ISBN 1-905-20704-2.
* 2008: "The Spanish House". Published onlinecite web |url= http://communities.canada.com/MONTREALGAZETTE/blogs/stageandpage/archive/2008/05/09/blue-met-flashback-2007-dr-saadi-in-glasgow-offers-free-novella.aspx |title= Blue Met Flashback 2007: Dr. Saadi in Glasgow offers free novella |author= Pat Donnelly |work= The Gazette (Montreal) |date= May 9 2008 ] by the University of Glasgow Association for Scottish Literary Studies in its biannual ezine "The Bottle Imp".cite web |url= http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/SWE/TBI/ |title= "The Bottle Imp" |author= Association for Scottish Literary Studies ]

References

External links

→ "Note on web searches: Saadi will occasionally be found misspelled as Saadhi."
* [http://sarmed.netfirms.com/suhayl/ Suhayl Saadi website]
* [http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/suhayl.html Suhayl Saadi] on Laura Hird's website.
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/scots.shtml Scots Today] by John Corbett for BBC " [http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/ Voices.] "
* [http://devolvingdiasporas.com/writing.htm Suhayl Saadi] on the Devolving Diasporas project sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Newcastle University, and the University of Stirling.