The Storytellers Daughter By Saira Shah
1. What descriptive details and magical comparisons are used in the father's story of the garden in Paghman? What is the purpose of this elegant description and its impact on Saira?
2. How does her father's cooking help to bring back the distant past and the culture of Afghanistan? Although the ingredients have been
adapted to what is available in Kent, England, how is the food able to “conve[y] th[e] essential quality" of the original dishes?
3. Why does the father compare his stories about the family's past in Afghanistan to dried onions? Do you agree with him that such stories
can help one to develop a sense of one's original community without
actually returning physically to a place of origin?
4. Why does the father keep the "crumbling title deed" and the record of the family tree in a secret place? According to Saira's grandfather, what are the importance and responsibility of ancestry? How does his story of the mule help to illustrate his viewpoint?