Shazea Quraishi is a writer, teacher and translator who was born in Pakistan, and grew up in Canada before moving to London. She published her first collection, The Art of Scratching, in 2015, which revealed her flair for reimagining historical texts, and followed this with The Courtesan’s Reply, a long poem sequence in the voice of Indian courtesans from 300 BC, written in response to the Indian poet Manhoman Ghosh’s translation of the Caturbhani. The Courtesan’s Reply revisits the plays’ original depiction of the courtesans and gives a voice to the women as a counterpoint to the plays’ narrator, and Ghosh’s, male voice and gaze. Quraishi teaches at the Poetry School and is an artist in residence with Living Words. Her other poetry collections include The Taxidermist (2020), and The Glimmer (2022).

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