You're running away from something terrible. You think you've escaped it, this thing, but it turns out it's waiting for you in all the places you hide; your house, your garden, a self-help group, a seraglio, the island of Zanzibar, a museum in Turin, a hot air balloon in Canada, even in the ladies' room of your favourite nightclub. You've carried it into these places with you. And now it's time for it to come out. The first collection of acclaimed short stories by Aliya Whitely takes the reader to the strangest, deepest corners of life experience. Grotesque, unsettling, and often very funny, Witchcraft in the Harem deals with birth and betrayal, love and loss, and all the terrible thoughts we want to escape, and find still waiting for us at the journey's end.