(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

When Pakistani expat Sammar Shabir began writing her debut book The Barred Window, she was reclaiming her sense of self. Published by the UAE-based independent house The Dreamwork Collective, the book unfolds against the backdrop of northern Pakistan in the summer of 2007, a time shadowed by sociopolitical unrest. Through its layered narrative, Shabir explores belonging, identity, and the delicate intersections of childhood innocence and societal turbulence.

A look within

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At its heart lies the story of 12-year-old Marleen and her spirited cousin Naima, who create a secret order called The Chess Society. What begins as an innocent pastime within the confines of their family estate soon evolves into something far more complex, a juvenile hierarchy reflecting the chaos beyond their walls. As violence brews outside, the children's structured games of power and allegiance grow darker, mirroring the conflict that surrounds them.

Blending tenderness with tension, The Barred Window examines how the boundaries between imagination and reality dissolve under pressure, and how even the most innocent minds can absorb and replicate the power structures of the adult world.

But for Shabir, the novel was more than fiction; it was an act of introspection.

“My own life came to a stop when I realised I was having a crisis of identity and could not see who I really was,” she reflects.“The book explores this inner transformation and the often painful process of realising who we are when the world around us begins to shift.

From coach to author

A certified mindset coach focused on personal transformation, Shabir grew up in a small town in Pakistan, where her love for storytelling began early. As a child, she often found herself captivated by small details - the way ants moved in perfect order, or how sunlight filtered through a barred window in her grandmother's house.

“There used to be a window in my grandmother's house overlooking the valley,” she recalls.“I'd sit beside it for hours, imagining adventures waiting on the other side. It became a symbol of curiosity and confinement and later, the focal point around which my novel was built.” That sense of duality seeps into every line of The Barred Window.

Her fascination with strategy, she says, also began early. Watching ants led to an early study in systems and order; years later, she discovered chess and realised she had a strategic mind.“I beat an expert in my second match,” she laughs.“And I've rarely lost since.” The logic of chess eventually became the scaffolding of her novel's internal world - the metaphorical and literal structure of The Chess Society.

Act of survival

Life, however, didn't unfold in straight lines. When societal expectations halted her university ambitions, Shabir learned resilience the hard way.“By the time I was a young adult, I had mastered the art of performance; the kind expected of women where I grew up,” she says.“I learned to please, to adapt, to fit the mould. But when everything that should have been simply wasn't anymore, I lost all sense of identity.”

It was in that liminal space between loss and rediscovery, that The Barred Window took shape. Writing became an act of survival.

“At first, I was driven by inspiration and motivation,” she says.“But I soon realised that writing a novel is nothing like a burst of creativity. It's an act of discipline - both art and math, strategy and honesty.”

Shabir recalls the countless editing rounds, the solitude of writing when no one was watching, and the absence of instant gratification.“To sit through that, and show up regardless, was one of the hardest things I've ever done,” she admits.“Learning to show up even when passion fades into routine - that's what made me finish The Barred Window.”

The result is a haunting debut that fuses the personal with the political, and the intimate with the epic. It speaks to anyone who has ever felt trapped between expectation and selfhood, confinement and freedom.

Published by The Dreamwork Collective in the UAE and by Liberty Books in Pakistan, The Barred Window was launched on November 16 at Kutubna Cultural Center in Dubai.

For Shabir, the launch marks not just the arrival of a new voice in South Asian literature - but the moment she stepped fully into her own.

“Before I wrote this book,” she says,“I was performing. Now, I'm simply showing up.”

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