The literary world was overcome with grief at the news of renowned author Sara Suleri-Goodyear’s passing on Monday, one day before Pakistan’s Republic Day.
She succumbed to a long battle with illness.
The Welsh-Pakistani author’s memoir, Meatless Days, an account of her life growing up in Pakistan, contains some of the finest writing on grief. Published in 1989, it was lauded for its graceful interlacing of national history and personal biography. Women’s Prize winner Kamala Shamsie has described it as “…some of the more heart-shaking writing about love and grief…” she has ever read.
Professor emeritus of English at Yale University, Suleri-Goodyear also wrote one of the seminal works of post-colonial literature in 1992, a collection of essays titled The Rhetoric of English India. The essays are essentially observations of intercultural impacts between Britain and India.
Suleri-Goodyear was founding editor of the Yale Journal of Criticism, and also served on the editorial boards of YJC, The Yale Review, and Transition.
Her work dwarfs even her father, Z.A. Suleri’s. He was a noted Pakistani political journalist, conservative writer, author, and a key Pakistan Movement activist.
In reporting her death, Pakistan broadsheet The Nation ranks her among the movers and shakers who have contributed to making Pakistan what it is.
