Fellows & Editors

Saba Imtiaz

Trip:: Fellows 2017
Affiliation:: Freelance
Country:: Pakistan
Year:: 2017

Find me on:: Twitter

Saba Imtiaz is a freelance journalist and author currently based in the Middle East. She has reported features from Jordan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Christian Science Monitor. She writes about culture, urban lifestyles, food trends, religion and society. She was a Visiting Carnegie Fellow at New America’s National Security Program in 2014. She is the author of the novel ‘Karachi, You’re Killing Me!’ (Penguin Random House India, 2014), and is currently working on a non-fiction book titled ‘No Team of Angels – Murder, Violence and Land in Pakistan’s Largest City: Karachi’ (First Draft Publishing, forthcoming). She studied Arabic at the Middlebury Language School’s Intensive Summer Program in 2016 as a Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace. She speaks English, Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Punjabi.

Stories

Taking Back the Internet for Pakistani Women

by Imtiaz, Saba | August 08, 2017

When you buy pads or tampons in Pakistan, grocery-store owners double-bag the purchases, ostensibly so people on the street can't see what lies within layers of brown-paper bags. {image-1} This culture...
In Pakistan, These Schools are Putting Morality Back into the Curriculum

by Imtiaz, Saba | July 07, 2017

In an upscale neighborhood in Karachi, Pakistan, the gates of a preschool open up to a front lawn with slides and pet cages. Each object in the garden has a piece of...
Pakistan’s first trans model: ‘People think we’re sex workers but we can be doctor

by Imtiaz, Saba | May 01, 2017

"Sex,” Kami Sid declares, “is between your legs. Gender is in your head.” Sid wants to get this into everyone’s head in Pakistan. A 26-year-old transgender activist,...
In Pakistan, women are driving the demand for Islamic content in relatable, meme-sized bites

by Imtiaz, Saba | April 10, 2017

In bookshops across Pakistan, there is no shortage of religious literature – translations and interpretations of the Quran, books of Hadiths (oral traditions of Prophet Mohammed) and stories of the prophets abound....
Pakistan City’s Affluent Women Bring Islam Into Their Lives and Lifestyles

by Imtiaz, Saba | March 13, 2017

KARACHI, Pakistan — It was a weekday afternoon in an upscale neighborhood of Karachi, but the hall was packed for the lecture on Islam and marriage. Laughter burst forth as the speaker...