SHAHILLA SHARIFF was born in Kenya and is Canadian. A fourth-generation East African, she spent her early childhood in a multi-generational Indian-Muslim household in Dar-es-Salaam. Her family later emigrated toCanada. She was educated at Harvard College, Harvard LawSchool and Cambridge University, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar. She has been a practising corporate lawyer for over twenty years. She has lived in Hong Kong since 1993.

LIFE LINES is a meditation on loss, exploring themes of love, grief, dislocation and transition. Shahilla Shariff's work addresses the vast and unruly dimensions of loss – loss of home, of time, of people, of self – and probes the raw and uncertain trajectory of mourning along with the complex interplay of memory, faith and fate. The poems span continents, generations and cultures, exposing the collisions and contradictions of  East and West which underlie her own personal narrative.

"Life Lines is a searingly beautiful collection of poetry. In the lines and in between the lines lies immeasurable loss: of love, of people, of places. Yet, what is remarkable about this debut is how the words are weighed and the stories sliced to create the possibility of understanding. A poet to watch, read and re-read."

—Razia Iqbal, BBC Presenter, Man Asian Literary Prize Jury Chair (2011)

 "A new and intense voice that startles and soars. These poems linger long after you have read them. They are lucid but layered with a polished, almost sculpted, feel to them. A brilliant, smouldering debut."

—Hong Ying, Author, Poet, Winner of the Prize of Rome(2005)