by Shafique Khokhar

Anee is a 17-year-old who hopes to publish soon a book of short stories. The latter have been inspired by her everyday life, and her experience as "a Christian student in a Muslim environment." Her father, a schoolteacher teacher, does not have the money to publish her work, but he is "proud of my daughter."

Lahore (AsiaNews) - "Let your daughters fly. Do not hinder their flight, liberty and potential. Girls can bring peace to this world," said Anee, a 17-year-old Pakistani girl who wants the world to know this through her stories.

In the coming months, she hopes to publish her first book, a collection of stories based on her daily life. Speaking to AsiaNews, she said that her stories are "about what it means to be discriminated and limited as girl in your own home or in social life;" about "my experience as a Christian student in a Muslim environment;" and in a lighter tone, about "how 'to get away from school'."

She began writing after her eighth class examination, and has 20 stories to her credit as of last August. Had she been able to publish her work right away, she "would have been among the few Pakistani girls (and perhaps the first Christian girl) to become a writer at the age of 16," she said. "Regrettably, my father did not have enough money to get the book published."

Anee hails originally from Stuntzavad, a Christian village in Khanewal District, southern Punjab. She moved to Lahore in 2002 with her parents. Her father, Ata-ur-Rehman Saman, is a schoolteacher.

"With my salary I can barely support my family," he said. "Unfortunately I do not have enough money to have Anee's published. That requires 50,000 rupees (US$ 500), but I'm proud and I thank God to have such a bright daughter."

The teenager loves to read. After her matric examinations, until January 2015, she "read 100 books." Her dream is to "be a writer." Her "mission is to be a useful person for humanity through all of the abilities that I am blessed with. My favourite subject is freedom and personal liberty," which prevail "throughout my stories."

Some of those stories, she explained, "reflect the atmosphere that a Christian family experiences, with its faith, strengths and weaknesses. The hero of my stories saves the whole universe, the whole human race, not a single person or a single religious community."

• pakistan
• christian
• writer
• anee
• saman
• teenager