Flaming Spirit’ was published in 1994 by Virago in occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Asian Women Writers Collective (AWWC). This is the Collective’s second anthology and was edited by Rukhsana Ahmad and Rahila Gupta. It features short stories by twenty authors of which we have digitised the following: Joyoti Grech’s nightmarish story, “In Your Own Words”; “Sisters”, a portrayal of family hardship by Sibani Raychaudhari; “Rebecca and the Neighbours”, a story of an Asian family’s struggles with racism by Tanika Gupta; “The Beggar King”, an account of a woman coming to terms with lost dreams and expectations by Smita Bhide; and “Mano Shanti”, a story about child abuse, abortion and politics by Preethi Manuel. The anthology includes works from members of the Collective as well as Asian women from other cities in Britain, who could not necessarily become members because of geographic constraints. This varied representation is reflected in the diverse stylistic tones of the anthology. As explained in the Introduction to ‘Flaming Spirit’, the Collective had made efforts to be more inclusive by starting a form of postal membership which enabled women to send in their work and receive feedback by post.

Read extracts from publication – part 1

Read extracts from publication – part 2