Airplane Mode
'A ruthlessly honest and funny observer' New York Times
'Should be required reading' Los Angeles Times
What does it mean to be a joyous traveller when we live in the ruins of colonialism? The conditions of travel have long been dictated by the colours of passports and the colour of skin. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures.
In Airplane Mode, Habib threads the history of travel through her childhood stories of family vacations in India, as an adult curious about the world and as an immigrant for whom round-trips are an annual fact of life.
Book details
- Format
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9781914613708
- Published
- 1 August 2024
- Pages
- 288
- Duration
- Dimensions
- 129 x 198 mm
- Genre
- Travel Writing
- Imprint
- September
Reviews
'Brilliant at evoking the quieter pleasures of travel'
'Compelling, witty, nuanced and frankly devastating on the ways that many ways that colonialism is embedded in the experience of travel'
'A ruthlessly honest and funny observer'
'In interweaving the personal and political stakes of travelling as a migrant, Habib gives us an urgently needed reimagining of the genre'
'Should be required reading'
'Fresh, thought-provoking and funny'
'A memorable and unique travelogue that explores what it means to explore the world through the lens of colonialism, capitalism, and climate change'
'Fascinating, wide-ranging and insightful... who gets to travel and what makes us so keen to travel in the first place?'
'An enlightening and entertaining debut essay collection' Smithsonian
'Insightful, funny, moving, politically astute... Habib's book is rich and her narrative voice analytic, historically informed, and passionate... compels us to engage in the politics of travel'
