[4] Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Granta, The Independent,[5] Wasafiri, Critical Muslim, InterlitQ, the Istanbul Review, Asian Cha, and the collection And the World Changed.
Shah was a contributing opinion writer from 2013-2015 for the International New York Times[6] and an op-ed columnist for Dawn,[7] a newspaper in Pakistan published in Karachi.
In 2005, her short story "The Optimist" was published in the anthology And the World Changed (Women Unlimited/OUP); an essay called "A Love Affair with Lahore" was published in an anthology edited by Bapsi Sidhwa called City of Sin and Splendour - Writings on Lahore (Penguin India - Pakistani title Beloved City -— OUP).
An Italian-language version was published in 2009 under the title La Bambina Che Non Poteva Sognare by Newton Compton Editori in Italy, where it reached number 3 on the paperback bestseller list,[23] and sold more than 20,000 copies.
Shah's fourth novel, A Season For Martyrs, was published by Delphinium Books (November 2014) to critical acclaim.
For this novel, Shah was awarded the Premio Internazionale in the Un Mondi di Bambini category of the Almalfi Coast Literary Festival in 2010 for translated fiction.
[30] In 2019 Shah contributed an essay, "The Life and Death of Pakistan's Sabeen Mahmud", about the assassination of Pakistan's beloved human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, to the anthology Brave New Words: The Power of Writing Now published by Myriad and edited by Susheila Nasta.
The anthology of fifteen specially commissioned essays examining the value of critical thinking and the power of the written word was published to commemorate 35 years of Wasafiri, a UK magazine of international literature.
Other contributors to the anthology included Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo, Githa Hariharan, Eva Hoffman, Romesh Gunesekera, James Kelman, Tabish Khair, Kei Miller, Blake Morrison, Mukoma wa Ngugi, Hsiao-Hung Pai, and Marina Warner.