Reversing the usual refugee story clichés, Homing Birds shares the hopes, fears and aspirations of a young man searching for a place in which he feels he truly belongs.

Young Afghan refugee Saeed desperately wants to reconnect with his roots and find his long-lost sister. So he leaves his adoptive family in London and returns home to Kabul to work as a doctor, eager to contribute to rebuilding a new Afghanistan.

But as past and present collide, Saeed must face up to the reality of his changed world. This captivating and evocative play asks if a place can ever be home without a connection to family and roots?

RUKHSANA AHMAD

Award-winning writer Rukhsana Ahmad has written and adapted many plays for stage and BBC Radio. River on Fire was a finalist in the Susan Smith Blackburn Awards, Wide Sargasso Sea was a finalist for the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Radio Adaptation and Song for a Sanctuary was a finalist for the CRE award for best original radio drama. Other plays include Mistaken: Annie Besant in India and Letting Go.

She has also written fiction: The Hope Chest and The Gatekeeper’s Wife and other stories. She has also translated We Sinful Women, a collection of contemporary Urdu feminist poetry and The One Who Did Not Ask by Altaf Fatima.

REVIEWS OF PREVIOUS WORK

“… the debates about belief and faith are clear and compelling and the play also bravely grapples with big spiritual ideas…”
— Aleks Sierz, theatre critic

“… sensitive approach gives painful credibility to the dilemmas facing women with nowhere else to go.”
— The Independent

Rukhsana Ahmad

Books