About

Farah Ahamed
Farah Ahamed

I am a writer and editor. My stories explore how people’s lives are affected by culture, religion and politics. Injustice moves me to write and my protagonists are very often women.

My nonfiction anthology Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia highlights over fifty intersectional ways in which menstruation is experienced through art, dance, poetry, short fiction, essays and interviews. For my book I interviewed street cleaners, homeless women, transpeople, politicians, women in prison, artists, actors, activists and entrepreneurs.

Period Matters was described by Book Riot, ‘as essential reading on women’s bodies.’ You can read more about it here: www.periodmattersbook.com and also about my charity in Kenya, Panties with Purpose.

My short fiction and essays have been published in White Review, LA Review of Books, Ploughshares, Massachusetts Review, Markaz Review, Asymptote, World Literature Today and other journals. Several of my stories are included in anthologies published in the US, UK, India and Kenya.

My stories have been finalists in the White Review, Bridport and Commonwealth prizes and been nominated for The Pushcart and Caine prizes.

I am a lawyer with a Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and an MA in Education from University College London. I was born in Kenya and currently live in London.

Farah Ahamed
Farah Ahamed