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Farah Ahamed is a writer and editor. Her stories explore how culture, religion, and politics constrain and determine the lives of ordinary people.
Farah has written a collection of stories based in East Africa, and another in Pakistan. She is currently working on a novel, Dil Bahar, about the manager of a traditional sweet shop set in the back streets of Lahore. Dil Bahar was shortlisted for the 2020 Screen Craft Cinematic Book Award and a finalist for the Primadonna Award 2019.
Farah has been shortlisted for various prizes including the Primadonna Festival Writing Award (2019), and the Canadian CBC Books Short Story Award (2018). Previously, she was joint winner of the inaugural Gerald Kraak Award and highly commended in the London Short Story Prize.
Her essays and stories have been shortlisted for the Thresholds Essay Prize, Screen Craft Prize, SI Leeds Literary Prize, DNA/Out of Print Award, and The Asian Writer Short Story Prize. She has been nominated for The Pushcart and Caine prizes.
Her short fiction and essays have been published in Ploughshares, The Massachusetts Review, The Mechanics’ Institute Review, among others.
Farah has a Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and an MA in Education. She was born in Kenya and has lived in Nairobi, Vancouver, Kampala and Bilbao. She currently lives between London and Lahore.
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Period Poverty
In addition to her work as a writer, Farah is a human rights lawyer and an advocate for ending period poverty. Her anthology on menstruation challenges of people in South Asia will be published by Pan Macmillan India in 2021.
Together with her sisters, Farah runs the campaign Panties with Purpose in Kenya which helps raise awareness about menstrual hygiene. Since 2011, more than 50,000 pairs of underpants have been distributed to 12,000 girls in over 100 locations across Kenya.
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