On the show this week, I spoke to the lovely Sara Nisha Adams about her two books, The Reading List and The Twilight Garden. This was such a wholesome, uplifting conversation where we talked about the importance of uplifting stories, hope, grief, community, libraries, gardening and so much more. We talked about our names, and the thought, experience and conscious choices that go into choosing names for ourselves, and those we love.

Sometimes, the news and social media is flooded with difficult stories, sad news and alarming statistics. It can get a bit too much. That’s why I think we always need stories that are full of hope and warmth, reminding us that although there might be sadness and challenges, there is much love and light in the world, and in our lives too. For this reason, I love the work of Sara Nisha Adams, an author whose books are uplifting, warm and wholesome. Sara Nisha’s books are based around community, togetherness, making unlikely friendships, healing from grief and loneliness, and finding and choosing family. I have loved the two books she’s written so far, and I’m so glad she’s my guest this week.

Sara Nisha Adams is a writer and editor. She lives in London and was born in Hertfordshire to Indian and English parents. Her debut novel The Reading List is partly inspired by her grandfather, who lived in Wembley and immediately found a connection with his granddaughter through books. Her latest novel, The Twilight Garden came out in June 2023. It tells the story of warring neighbours, Winston and Bernice, who put aside their differences to nurture and grow a communal garden. What develops is an unlikely friendship, healing from grief and so much more. 

I loved speaking with Sara Nisha, and hope you loved this conversation too.

Connect with me on social media - I'd love to hear from you.

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

What happens when two people are deeply in love, but they want different things for their future? Can a relationship, or a marriage, work its way around fundamental things like having kids, career goals and what family should look like? Is love enough, and do we really listen when women tell us what they want from life?

This week, I spoke to Krystle Zara Appiah about her debut novel, Rootless. In Rootless, we’re presented with Efe and Sam, two people massively in love who get married to build a life together. We follow them on their journey as they grow and change in love, but also as they face huge hurdles when it comes to deciding how they want their life to look like. Certain that she doesn’t want to be a mother, Efe finds herself living a life very different to what she truly longs for, and we follow the couple as they navigate through life’s big questions. 

Krystle Zara Appiah is a Ghanaian writer and screenwriter, born and raised in London. She has a degree in literature and creative writing from the University of Kent. In 2020, she was one of forty writers selected for the London Library's Emerging Writers Programme. She also works as a children's books editor.

Rootless is her debut novel.  

Thank you so much to Krystle for a moving and insightful conversation! I loved every second of it, and hope you do too. 

I'd love to hear from you, so please do connect with me on social media:

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

On this week's episode, I spoke to Eleanor Shearer about her debut novel, River Sing Me Home.

River Sing Me Home is the story of Rachel, who escapes the plantation where she was enslaved and later forced to work for years, unpaid. She runs in search of her five children who had been taken from her over the years, hoping to reconnect with them and reunite her family. It is a moving novel about love, family, freedom, storytelling, resilience, strength and hope.

In our conversation, we talk about the 1843 Slavery Emancipation act, narratives around slavery, re-telling history, the concept of freedom, the importance of storytelling and so much more.

Eleanor Shearer is a mixed-race writer and the granddaughter of Windrush generation immigrants. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate on the English coast so that she never has to go too long without seeing the sea. She currently works for a think tank. For her Master's degree in Politics at the University of Oxford, Eleanor studied the legacy of slavery and the case for reparations, and her fieldwork in St. Lucia and Barbados helped inspire her first novel.

I really hope you enjoy this episode, and I would love to hear from you.

Connect with me on social media:

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

This week, I spoke to the incredibly warm and super inspiring author, Marjan Kamali. Marian's latest novel, The Stationery Shop of Tehran has been adored by readers all over the world, and praised for its epic and beautiful love story. The book is set amidst massive political upheaval in Iran in 1953. We follow two young lovers, Roya and Bahman, who become estranged for decades, until they are reunited 60 years later in the United States. The Stationery Shop of Tehran is a really stunning novel, exploring what happens when we lose our homes and our country, finding and rebuilding ourselves, love, the importance of closure, and how amid hardship and loss, there is also much to gain. 

Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Stationery Shop, a bestseller, and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship.

Marjan’s novels are published in translation in more than 20 languages (19 languages for The Stationery Shop and 8 languages for Together Tea). Her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, Kamali spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the U.S.  She currently teaches creative writing at GrubStreet and lives in the Boston area with her family.

I loved every second of speaking with Marjan, and hope you do too. If you enjoyed the podcast, please follow the Diverse Bookshelf on your podcast platform of choice and connect with me on social media. I would really appreciate it if you could rate and leave a review, as it helps more people find the podcast. 

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

This week, I spoke to Mai Al-Nakib about her stunning novel, An Unlasting Home. It is an epic inter-generational saga that spans time and place, exploring the idea of home, belonging and identity. With themes of birds and water running throughout, the book explores what happens when we leave our homes, or are made to leave, and how sometimes places let us go themselves. We follow Sara, a university philosophy lecturer, as she finds herself accused of Blasphemy, which has just been introduced as a capital crime, punishable by death. As she navigates this impossibly difficult situation, she uncovers and explores the stories of the women who raised her and came before her, and how every moment too led to right now.

Mai Al-Nakib was born in Kuwait and spent the first six years of her life in London, Edinburgh, and St. Louis, Missouri. She holds a PhD in English literature from Brown University and is Associate Professor of English and comparative literature at Kuwait University. Her academic research focuses on cultural politics in the Middle East, with a special emphasis on gender, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonial issues. Her short story collection, The Hidden Light of Objects, was published by Bloomsbury in 2014. It won the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s 2014 First Book Award, the first collection of short stories to do so. Her debut novel is called An Unlasting Home, was published recently

I loved every second of speaking with Mai, and hope you do too. If you enjoyed the podcast, please follow the Diverse Bookshelf on your podcast platform of choice and connect with me on social media. I would really appreciate it if you could rate and leave a review, as it helps more people find the podcast. 

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

On this week's episode, I spoke to Mona Hajjar Halaby about her memoir, In My Mother's Footsteps. Mona's mother was a Palestinian refugee, who fled Palestine in 1948 at the time of the Nakba and the creation of the state of Israel. She lived in Egypt with her husband and two daughters until 1961, when the family became refugees once more, and moved to Switzerland. In her book, Mona shares her mother's experiences of growing up in Palestine, being forced to leave her home, and her Palestinian identity. Mona spends a year working at a school in Ramallah, teaching children about communication and conflict resolution. During this time, she makes the journey to her mother's home village, uncovering deeper layers of her own identity.

In this episode, we talk about identity, belonging, returning home and the refugee crisis. 

Mona Hajjar Halaby is a Palestinian-American educator, writer and social historian. In order to preserve Palestinian culture and heritage, she has created "British Mandate Jerusalemites Photo Library" on Facebook, and "The Palestine Ethnographic Society." She collaborated on an interactive documentary "Jerusalem We Are Here," which takes participants on a walking tour of a neighborhood in Jerusalem past and present, and presents a map that documents the houses in the neighborhood with their documents, photos, and stories. Hajjar-Halaby has written a parenting book, a book on her classroom practice and has a new book coming out in May entitled, "In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home."

Support the show

William Shakespeare is upheld as one of the greatest writers of all time. He is the most quoted person in the English-speaking language, coming only second after those who wrote down the Bible. But is Shakespeare still relevant today? Should we still be teaching Shakespeare in school, or do young people find themselves unable to relate to his work and characters? Is the anti-black racism, anti-semitism and misogyny present in Shakespeare's writing proof that he was holding up a mirror to society, or that he was simply putting forward his own views?

In this episode, I spoke with Farah Karim-Cooper, and we talked about all of these things and more. In her latest book, The Great White Bard: Shakespeare, Race and the Future, Farah gives us a detailed look into Shakespeare's work through the lens of race, encouraging us to think more deeply about the great playwright's work. She brings to light many aspects of his work that are often overlooked, and provides an insightful and thoughtful context that helps us get a deeper understanding. 

We talk about the writers we place on a pedestal, diversifying curriculums, mixed-race couplings in Shakespeare's work, and how so many issues he forced us to confront his work, are still affecting our societies today.

Farah Karim-Cooper is Professor of Shakespeare Studies, King’s College London and Co -Director of Education & Research at Shakespeare’s Globe, where she has worked for the last 17 years. Farah is President of the Shakespeare Association of America after having served three years as Trustee. She leads the architectural enquiries into early modern theatres at Shakespeare’s Globe, overseeing the research into the design and construction of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the Globe’s indoor Jacobean theatre.

She has published over 40 chapters in books, reviews and articles and is a General Editor for Arden’s Shakespeare in the Theatre series and their Critical Intersections Series. She has written three books.

Buy The Great White Bard here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5890/9780861545346


If you enjoyed this podcast, connect with me on social media and let me know your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you.

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod

Please do consider rating and leaving a review :)

Support the show

Today’s episodes is about one of my most favourite cities in the world – Sarajevo. Bosnian history is really fascinating, heartbreaking and complex, but gives us so much to learn from, reflect on and truly understand about the world and communities. In this episode, I’m talking to Priscilla Morris about her debut novel, Black Butterflies, which is set in 1992 in Sarajevo, at the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo, which was initially believed to last just a few days, but continued for four years.  

Born to a Yugoslav mother and English father, Priscilla wrote her debut novel Black Butterflies to understand the siege that devastated her mother’s hometown of Sarajevo from 1992-1996. It has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and longlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. It was chosen as Indie Fiction Book of the Month in May 2022. It is currently being translated into Bosnian, Italian and Catalan.

She lectures in creative writing at University College Dublin and has taught at the University of East Anglia, Kingston University and City Lit. She haa an MA with Distinction and a PhD in Creative Writing from UEA. She read Italian, Spanish and Social Anthropology at Cambridge University.  I’m so glad she’s my guest today. 

Buy Black Butterflies here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5890/9780715654590

If you enjoyed this episode, please do consider rating and leaving a review. Also, I'd really love to hear from you so please do connect with me on social media.

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

Today’s guest is one the Gulf’s most noteworthy authors, Layla AlAmmar. Layla has published two internationally acclaimed novels The Pact We Made and Silence Is A Sense, in 2019 and 2021, respectively.

On this episode, we talk about SO much, and Layla shares such insight from a psychological perspective, discussing theories around trauma, memory and the versions of ourselves that we lose. We talk about who dictates how stories are told, why narratives around refugees are forcibly dehumanising, and what trauma does to the mind's ability to make memories. 

Set in Kuwait, The Pact We Made revolves around the main character, Dalia, a young Kuwaiti who is pressured to get married by her traditional family as she approaches her 30th birthday, when all she craves is more independence and a life as an art student in the United States. It follows the struggle that emerges within Dalia from living a life that is significantly different from the one she desires, all while she harbors a long-kept secret.  The second novel, Silence is a Sense, tells the story of an unnamed Syrian refugee who finds herself mute in her new community after an arduous trip from war-torn Syria to the UK. It follows her journey of making sense of her new surroundings and her place within them, as she writes about her experiences for a British news outlet under the alias, “The Voiceless.”

 Layla AlAmmar is a writer and academic from Kuwait. She has a PhD in Arab women's fiction and literary trauma theory.and an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. She was the 2018 British Council International Writer in Residence at the Small Wonder Short Story Festival. Her debut, THE PACT WE MADE, was longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel, SILENCE IS A SENSE (2021) was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She has written for The Guardian, LitHub, the Times Literary Supplement, ArabLit Quarterly, and The New Arab.

You can find Layla on social media here:
www.instagram.com/layla_alammar 

 If you enjoyed the podcast, please follow the Diverse Bookshelf on your podcast platform of choice. I would really appreciate it if you could rate and leave a review, as it helps more people find the podcast. 

Please do connect with me on social media. I'd love to hear from you:

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show

I am so excited about this week's episode. I spoke with the incredible Fatima Manji, award-winning broadcaster and journalist, about her book, Hidden Heritage.

Hidden Heritage is a myth-busting journey through Britain’s history through heritage sites and British historical sources, rediscovering Britain’s relationship with the Orient. I absolutely loved this book, and found it fascinating and intriguing. Fatima shares stories and introduces us to artefacts and sources that point to a more nuanced and multi-layered relationship between Britain and West and South Asia and North Africa. While sharing some really fascinating stories, she also sheds light on a darker side of history, encouraging us to reconsider some popular narratives of history, and the way we approach society and issues today. 

Fatima Manji is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist who anchors the UK’s Channel 4 News, the nation’s most popular adversarial nightly news programme. She reports on major national and international stories, and is best known for breaking stories with a global impact: including the tale of Saudi princesses held hostage for years by their father the King; giving voice to the heart-rending testimonies of internally displaced Iraqis fleeing ISIS; investigating an MI5 spy accused of entrapment in Northern Ireland; and tracing the perilous journey of victims of war across the Hungarian border in the face of rising anti-migrant extremism.

--

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and leaving review. Also, come join me on social media - I'd love to connect!

www.instagram.com/readwithsamia
www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod 

Support the show