What Kept You?

A coming-of-age story set in a world marked by political turmoil and the threat of violence, What Kept You? is the powerful debut novel by Raaza Jamshed.

As a child in Pakistan, Jahan was raised on her grandmother’s stories, influenced by the demons of folklore and the memory of violence and forced displacement caused by the British partition of India – tales that taught her to be wary of the world. But her grandmother’s life, filled with quiet defiance, hints at another truth. Jahan rebels against the constraints she lives under as a young woman growing up in Lahore, and migrates to Australia, where she meets her husband, whose family is from the Middle East. As she reckons with the unruliness of her body after a miscarriage, and the bushfires which threaten their home and horses on the rural outskirts of Sydney, she is forced to confront the violence that haunts her, against women, animals, and in nature.

A feminist anti-tale, written in a uniquely expressive voice that floats between English, Urdu and Arabic, What Kept You? explores survival, metamorphosis, and the radical freedom of choosing one’s own ending.

What Kept You? is a dazzling, poignant tale of defiance and metamorphosis in an ever-changing world… Written in painstakingly beautiful prose, What Kept You? is a masterfully crafted text challenging what it means to be a woman of colour in modern-day Australia… the perfect novel for fans of Omar Sakr (Non-Essential Work) and Yumna Kassab (Politica).
Nilab Siddiqi, Books+Publishing

A work centring on the power and perplexion of stories, and on the moral courage to choose one’s own. Jamshed offers an energetic new voice in Australian fiction: vivid in expression and bold in vision.
Gail Jones

An impressive use of voice in beautiful and poetic language.
Yumna Kassab