Imtiaz Dharker

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the poet and artist, Imtiaz Dharker. Winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for her work, her life seems a perfect reflection of the inter-relatedness of The Commonwealth. Born in Pakistan she was no more than a few months old when the family packed up their belongings and flew four thousand miles to start a new life - exchanging the blistering, dusty lanes of Lahore for the blustery, rain-slicked roads of Glasgow. Her father worked hard and, from scratch, built a big, successful business and a comfortable life for his children. But the immigrant fairytale came undone when his restless, well-educated, westernised daughter married in secret, running away to Bombay. Her parents disowned her and she would never see her mother again. Her work centres on themes of freedom, cultural intolerance, everyday life and gender politics.

You can listen to Imtiaz Dharker online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Imtiaz Dharker is an episode from Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2014 by BBC.

This episode is 36:17 long.

This episode was published on Jul 12, 2015.

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