We at The Aleph Review are delighted to have Taiba Abbas as our website editor for the month of November (2022).
Taiba Abbas is a writer, teacher, and the founder of the publishing house Àla Books and Authors. Born in Pakistan, she grew up in Italy, and holds a Master’s degree in comparative literature from SOAS, University of London. She is the co-author of The Night In Her Hair—a modernised retelling of selected folk romances from the subcontinent. Her teaching career spans several years, having taught courses in Italian, English literature, film, and cultural studies at universities and schools in Lahore and Islamabad. She is currently working on her first novel.
The following is her wonderful vision for her digital curation this month.
Personal Myths
There is a pattern to who we are and the things we do. A story that runs through our actions, because we choose it and because it chooses us. It shapes us, sustains us through our griefs, our fears, our passions, our desires. Because sometimes our own lives are not enough to define who we are. Sometimes we live more in that ‘other’ story—that myth that we identify with and see ourselves in.
There are certain stories, certain primal archetypal narratives/characters that we encounter through various forms and are drawn to because we want to ‘be’ them, or because we try to make sense of our lives through them. We carry them inside us, like a memory, like a song that won’t stop playing, and re-enact them through the mistakes we keep repeating, through the choices we keep making and not making—and in doing so, we make those myths our own.
All this month, through art, poetry, prose, and flash fiction, I want to know what personal myths you uncover when you see your imagined self in the mirror. The personal myth of your unfulfilled self, your alternate self.
— Taiba Abbas
We are looking forward to her curated pieces and hope you enjoy them as well.
Mehvash Amin
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