Workshop 3

24 January 2020

Glow of the Senses: Women Writing of Love and Loss

Huzama Habayeb & Hanan al-Shaykh

The Keynes Library, School of Arts, Birkbeck College, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

In the third workshop of this 2019-2020 series, the prize-winning writer Huzama Habayeb, author of Before the Queen Falls Asleep and Velvet (2016, translated Kay Heikkinen, 2019), discussed her fiction with Hanan al-Shaykh, acclaimed novelist, memoirist and short story writer, author of Women of Sand and Myrrh (trans. 1992) and The Story of Zahra (Trans 1994). Themes to explore included: the depiction of women’s passions, the experience of war and the camps, and approaches to dislocation, disempowerment and loss.

The group sessions provided the scope to be innovative about participation and collaboration for literary creativity.

Workshop material:

Part 1: Huzama Habayeb presents Velvet