Your Tongue Is Still Yours

2019 WINNER OF THE BODLEY HEAD | FINANCIAL TIMES ESSAY PRIZE

'Surkh gulaaban day mausam vich,
Phulaan de rang kaalay.

(In the season of red roses,
These flowers are turning black.)'

Your Tongue Is Still Yours is a poetic meditation on language, regional cultures and how identity exists in the many layers between the two. Punjabi. Urdu. English. Arabic. Balti. Shina. Khowar. Wakhi.

Dur e Aziz Amna goes back to Pakistan, traversing its different regions before returning to New York, considering how language has shaped her past and how it might do the same for her children’s future.