Today I’m joined joined by Saima Begum, a British-Bangladeshi writer whose voice is courageous, lyrical, and intent on bringing untold histories out of the silence.

Saima Begum lives in London, and though The First Jasmines is her debut novel, she has already made her mark - she won the MFest Short Story Competition in 2021. 

Her novel The First Jasmines (published 31 July 2025 with Hajar Press) is set during the final stages of the Bangladesh Liberation War, in 1971, and follows two sisters, Lucky and Jamila, who are captured by Pakistani soldiers and held in a detention-camp.  Locked in a single room by the river, they see outside a barred window the white jasmines blooming day and night, even as the brutal violence of war rages all around. 

What emerges in The First Jasmines is not just a story of war and the suffering inflicted, but a deeply human account of survival, memory, and the afterlives of violence. Begum explores how women in the detention camp develop inner lives even under extreme oppression: how they talk among themselves, remember their lives before, reflect on motherhood, marriage, beauty, bodily autonomy, and struggle for dignity.  

In Begum’s words, she felt she “didn’t see that reflected in the literature” about Bangladesh and its war - this gap compelled her to write. 

In this episode, we talk about silences, the stories we inherit, womanhood, identity, survival, hope and so much more. I'm honoured to share this conversation with you. 

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