‘Sandpiper’ is a lyrical beauty, written in the first person, that draws you in immediately, with detail of the sea, the beach the narrator is sitting on and her thoughts on the love for her husband that has been fading each summer, a beautiful marker of time.

This collection of short stories was one of the first I read as an expatriate of twenty years, but never in Egypt, alas. I can identify closely with the settings and the stories. I met and befriended so many people of different cultural identities. There are important questions raised in the collection – of who are you, where do you belong, where is home, questions that are often asked and not always answered. And the answers can change over time.

I basked in the sense of place, cultural evocation and multiple layers of each story.

First published in I Think of You, Bloomsbury 2007