Junaid Shah Shabir is a PhD Candidate in literature and Creative Writing at The University of Texas at Dallas, where he is completing his first novel, The Shawl Seller, of which this piece is an excerpt. After Rizwan is accused of planting bombs in a city just a day after he arrives in the city to join his father's flourishing shawl business, and is jailed for more than two decades, Sabreen keeps on writing to him. Her letters, however, suddenly stop arriving roughly three months before he is acquitted of all charges. He has no idea why! Would the 55-year-old finally meet his lover whom he had last seen 23 years ago? Would he be able to adapt to the current tech-heavy world after being confined to prison in the days of black and white TVs?
Junaid Shabir's creative pieces have appeared in ASIATIC IIUM, Red Fern Review, Rat Ass Review, Aorta, and elsewhere.

Junaid Shabir
Ph.D. Literature Candidate &
Instructor of Creative Writing, World Lit, and Rhetoric
School of Arts, Humanities & Technology
The University of Texas at Dallas