Join us for an evening celebrating the publication of COOP: A NOVELETTE by Nida Sajid. Nida will be reading from the book and discussing with Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi.

Lena is a part-time bookseller in a bougie design studio in Oxford Circus. In between minimum-wage work under a politically hostile boss and strained communications with her parents, her days are shaped by a fraught relationship with food, ambiguous experiments in creative writing, and mounting pressure to find a ‘proper’ postgraduate job.

In taut, pocket-sized vignettes, COOP reveals a suffocating lattice of language that makes up a precarious London life. But as each word of her story unravels, Lena discovers interstices between them—to find autonomy and escape.

Nida Sajid is a postdisciplinary educator, organiser and writer. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies from Birkbeck, University of London, specialising in experimental literature. Her debut work of short fiction, COOP: A Novelette, is forthcoming with Hajar Press in December 2025.

Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi has published essays, reviews, short stories, poetry, monologues, and translations, and has also written for radio and for the stage. She was also contributing editor for the Serial podcast The Trojan Horse Affair. Her debut novel, THE CENTRE, was published by Picador in 2023.

Contact the host of COOP: Nida Sajid in conversation with Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi