About

Chinese-Australian-Pakistani author Shi Naseer has lived in nine countries, backpacked to over seventy, and currently divides her time between Connecticut in the US and Pakistan. She aims to connect people by telling stories from different cultures.

Her debut novel, The Cry of the Silkworm, was released in summer 2024 with Atlantic Books/Allen&Unwin. A coming-of-age and revenge story of a young girl in turn-of-the-century China, it reveals the devastating consequences of the one-child policy.

Shi Naseer holds a PhD in theoretical physics from Harvard University.

A note on her pen name:
史/Shi is a Chinese family name; Naseer/نصیر is a Muslim name.
Literally, 史(shǐ) = history; 耐(nài) = resistant; and 涩(sè) = awkward [in speech & writing].

The longer story...

Shi Naseer experiences, loves, trusts her logic, looks for a balance, and seeks the broadest perspective possible. Traveling and doing science are parts of it. She sees the world behind the division of nation-states, which often makes no sense, and does not have a [Country]-centered view. She has lived in

  • China (1990-2003): born in an average Shanghainese family, went to elementary school there, and worked at Radio Shanghai;

  • Australia (2004-08, 10, 12): went to high school in Sydney and did most of her bachelor's there;

  • Italy (2009): lived in Pordenone and studied Italian in Bologna in the hope of becoming a Cremonese violinmaker;

  • USA (2011, 2014-19, present): did a student exchange in Seattle and earned a PhD in black-hole physics in Boston;

  • Switzerland (2012): interned at the particle accelerator LHC at CERN, Geneva;

  • Netherlands (2013): did a student exchange in Utrecht;

  • UK (2013-14): earned a master's in applied mathematics in Cambridge;

  • Pakistan (2017-present): fulfill family obligations every winter in southern Punjab and Islamabad;

  • Sweden (2019-23, COVID): got married, got a publishing deal, had a baby, had a deportation;

  • Japan: in the list just because the culture had pulled her through the darkest times of her life. She’s been fluent in Japanese since she was fifteen, her passion and work ethic inspired by Whisper of the Heart and Hikaru no Go.

Between the ages of 18 and 30, Shi Naseer traveled everywhere, backpacking, volunteering, sleeping in hostel dorms (or tents!). She is fluent in Mandarin & Shanghainese, English, Japanese, Italian, Urdu & Hindi, and Swedish, and conversational in a few other languages. A multilingual translator for two decades, she believes that when you talk to someone in their native language, you talk to their heart.

She loves to share — not only through her writing but also through real, human-to-human interactions. She would love to hear from you.