Ghulam Mohammad, successful hotelier and shop owner, wants to sell up and buy a church - a derelict church in a run-down corner of Birmingham - and convert it into a mosque. But his son has other plans. With an eye on his temporal rather than spiritual riches, he will stop at nothing to protect his inheritance...Shera has problem - a wife who seems unable to conceive, an overbearing mother desperate for grandchildren, and a mistress who he is infatuated with. The solution seems obvious; simply remove the parts that are causing the trouble...These are just two of the stories in this collection of seventeen short stories by Pakistani women. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from the stream-of-consciousness that is 'Millipede' - recounting a man's descent into madness as his obsession that he has become infected by insects grows - to the violence shown by a father to his son when he beats him to within an inch of his life in 'The Coach'. The stories have a diversity that reflects Pakistani women themselves, as the anthology twists away from any preconceived notions a reader might have.First published by the Pakistani Academy of Letters, the narratives are translated from Urdu, Punjabi, Seraiki, Pushto, and Sindhi. The stories reveal the increasing power and influence that Pakistani women writers have achieved in the last half-century. These writings from the post-independence generation explore the contrasts and conflicts of the modern world with the traditional, and show a re-defining of women's position within a changing society.This anthology has been produced in collaboration with UNESCO.