This is the Mask: A Book Blog

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of Fatimah Asghar’s beautiful collection of poetry Daughter of the Mountains. It is greatly appreciated.

I can definitively say that Daughter of the Mountains by Fatimah Asghar is the best book I have read so far this year. Asghar’s poetry is absolutely beautiful, full of emotion. They write with heartache and longing, as though yearning for an ideal that hovers just out of reach. In their work they explore place: the place we come from, the place we are, places we have been and places we return to. They redefine what home is, and what family means. Asghar explores the facets of the self: who we are, and how we learn to be this idea of “I,” and how we each belong to a whole.

Many of Asghar’s poems brought me to tears. They write of a people who have experienced oppression and loss: loss of loved ones, loss of place, loss of home, loss of identity. And yet, they also write of hope. They are able to dream of change, and it is this which makes this book so beautiful. It is heartrending in some places but so uplifting in others. Daughter of the Mountains is Fatimah Asghar’s third volume of poetry. I cannot recommend this book enough, and I intend to read their other books as well.

Daughter of the Mountains is scheduled for publication on July 7, 2026.