Events at the Shop
Hanan al-Shaykh with Esther Freud - World Literature Weekend
Friday 19 June 2009
The leading Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh was just seven years old when her mother, Kamila, sought a divorce from her father, who ran a strictly religious household. She read from and discussed her memoir The Locust and The Bird: My Mother’s Story with Esther Freud, the author of Hideous Kinky and The Sea House, as part of the London Review Bookshop’s World Literature Weekend.
“I Gave Birth to My Mother”
Listen now (13:22)
Hanan al-Shaykh describes the process by which she came to appreciate that her own mother’s story was worthy of being told.
“By Writing Them Down, My Feelings Last Forever”
Listen now (25:54)
Hanan reads from The Locust and the Bird and discusses with Esther Freud how she became a writer.
Audience Questions
Listen now (11:51)
Recorded and edited by Adrian Leibowitz and Brett Wilson
Common Custom:documentary & archive
Hanan al-Shaykh is one of the contemporary Arab world’s most acclaimed writers. She was born in Lebanon and brought up in Beirut, before going to Cairo to receive her education. She was a successful journalist in Cairo and in Beirut, then later lived in the Arabian Gulf, before moving to London. She is the author of the collection I Sweep the Sun off Rooftops and her novels include The Story of Zahra, Women of Sand and Myrrh, Beirut Blues and, most recently, Only in London, which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. She lives in London.
Esther Freud was born in London in 1963. She trained as an actress before writing her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was made into a feature film starring Kate Winslet. She has since written four other novels. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages. Her most recent novel was Love Falls.
Further Reading
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