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The Things I Would Tell You

Page 20

by Sabrina Mahfouz


  Novelist, columnist and reviewer Kamila Shamsie was born in Pakistan in 1973 to a family of women writers. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Shamsie is the author of six novels, including Kartography (2002) and Burnt Shadows (2009), which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Most recently, A God in Every Stone (2014) was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. In 2013, she was included in the Granta list of twenty best young British writers. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London.

  Hanan al-Shaykh is a Lebanese author of contemporary Arab women’s literature. A novelist, short-story writer and playwright, she is one of the leading women writers in the Arab world. Her stories deal with women’s role in society, the relationship between the sexes, and the institution of marriage. Her novels have been translated into multiple languages and include One Thousand and One Nights and Women of Sand and Myrrh.

  Born in Cairo in 1950, Ahdaf Soueif is a novelist and political and cultural commentator,. She is the author of a range of both fiction and non-fiction publications, including the bestselling The Map of Love (1999), shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction, and Cairo: My City, Our Revolution (2012), a personal account of the beginnings of the Egyptian Revolution. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a board member of The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. In 2008, she launched the world’s first Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest), of which she is the Founding Chair.

  Chimene Suleyman is a writer and poet from London, currently living in New York. Her debut poetry collection, Outside Looking On (2014), was included in the Guardian’s Best Book List of 2014. She regularly contributes to publications and organisations such as The Independent and Media Diversified concerning race and gender issues, and has performed at events and venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Bush Theatre, Secret Garden Party and OutSpoken. She was one of the contributors to the recently published The Good Immigrant (2016), a collection of essays exploring race and identity in contemporary Britain.

  Azra Tabassum is a twenty-one-year-old English Literature student from Southhampton. Her debut poetry collection, Shaking the Trees, was published by Words Dance Publishing. Tabassum runs a popular poetry tumblr blog called Hit the Body Like a Season.

  Credits

  Leila Aboulela, The Insider, originally broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 2 November 2013.

  Shaista Aziz, ‘Blood and Broken Bodies’, based on articles originally written for The Guardian and The Globe and Mail, 2014 and 2016 respectively.

  Imtiaz Dharker, poems from The Terrorist at My Table, Bloodaxe, 2006.

  Fadia Faqir, ‘Under the Cypress Tree’, first published in Wasafiri special online issue, 2014. The short story was shortlisted for the 2010 Bridport Prize.

  Triska Hamid, edited version of ‘Islamic Tinder Apps Are Being Launched for Britain’s Independent Female Muslims’, Vice, 2015.

  Aisha Mirza, ‘Staying Alive Through Brexit’, blackgirldangerous, 2016.

  Shazea Quraishi, poems from The Art of Scratching, Bloodaxe, 2015.

  Ahdaf Soueif, edited version of the preface from the collection of essays, Mezzaterra, Bloomsbury, 2004.

  Hanan al-Shaykh (translator Wiam El-Tamami), ‘An Eye That Sees’, Road Stories, Faber & Faber, 2012.

  Hibaq Osman, ‘July and the Following Months’, ‘Matchstick Lips’ and ‘The Things I Would Tell You’, from A Silence You Can Carry, Out-Spoken Press, 2015.

 

 

 


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