Azra Raza in Dawn:
My friend Professor Tahira Naqvi wrote in her condolence note: “I don’t think there is a book cover that has ever made a place in popular consciousness as that of Meatless Days. I can’t remember a book from my early days here that had as much of an impact as that brilliantly written memoir.”
As recently as this January, Sharon Cameron — a beloved friend and an exacting professor of English — read Meatless Days and had this to say: “I so admire the complex way SS weaves together family and Pakistani history and the nuanced way in which the narrative moves in and out, and then back around and at an angle through subjects newly given contour and life. SS is a very gifted writer.”
I read this to Sara over the telephone. Pleased, she remarked that the only other person who understood her “narrative weaving” was her friend and author David Lelyveld who, upon reading Meatless Days, exclaimed: “It moves like a ghazal!”
More here.