Shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2023.
A Pebble in the Throat is the coming of age story of Aasmah Mir’s childhood growing up in 1970s Glasgow.
From a vivacious child to a teenage loner, Aasmah candidly shares the highs and lows of growing up between two cultures – trying to fit in at school and retreating to the safe haven of a home inhabited by her precious but distant little brother and Helen, her family’s Glaswegian guardian angel.
Intricately woven into this moving memoir is the story of Aasmah’s mother, as we follow her own life as a young girl in 1950s Pakistan to 1960s Scotland and beyond. Both mother and daughter fight, are defeated and triumph in different battles in this sharp and moving story. A Pebble in the Throat is a remarkable memoir about family, identity and finding yourself where you are.
This bittersweet memoir unravels the immigrant experience, it shows how the wheels of progress could often stick, and how much courage and humour are needed to find one’s place in the world.
Shortlisted for Scotland’s National Book Award for Non-Fiction
‘A treasure of a book’ Fern Britton
