Away from the festivities and communal interactions that make Ramadan special, this year, books seem like a fitting avenue through which we can explore the lives of Muslims across the world. Authors who write about Muslim lives From biographies to novels, for children and for adults, these authors have penned stories that are both wholesome and enlightening.
Zeyn Joukhadar
(THE DAILY STAR) Syrian-American writer Zeyn Joukhadar’s books traverse fraught histories through the deceptively light lens of young adult narrators who write about Muslim lives. The Map of Salt and Stars (Hachette, 2018) follows two lives—both through 12-year-old Nour, who, during the month of Ramadan, travels painstakingly across Syria, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Ceuta, after her home in the Syrian city of Homs is bombed. Nour is retracing a journey charted 800 years ago by Rawiya, a young girl like herself who served as apprentice to a famous map-maker, and who defeated the mythical Rukh bird of the Thousand and One Nights saga. Joukhadar’s latest novel,
Thirty Names of the Night (Atria Books, 2020) takes us inside the mind of a Syrian-American trans boy who paints murals on the walls of Little Syria in Manhattan. The narrator discovers Laila Z, a Syrian-American artist who mysteriously disappeared 60 years before.
SK Ali
The Canadian author became popular among young readers who write about Muslim lives with the release of her debut novel, Saints and Misfits (Simon & Schuster, 2017), which features a Muslim protagonist navigating the problems of living as a teenager in multicultural America.
Ali has also authored Love from A to Z (Simon & Schuster, 2019), reviewed previously by the Daily Star Books, in which 18-year-old Zayneb, a Pakistani-West Indian-American teen, stands up against Islamophobia. Also worth reading are Ali’s short story anthology,
Once Upon an Eid (Amulet Books, 2020), which the Daily Star Books reviewed for Eid-ul-Fitr last year, and the picture book, The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2019).
Syed M Masood
Being an immigrant himself, Masood portrays the lives of Pakistani Muslims immigrants in his books. His debut novel, More Than Just a Pretty Face (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2020), is a story of young-adult romance caught between identities and family expectations. His latest, The Bad Muslim Discount (Penguin Random House, 2021), is a novel of the comedy-drama genre that peers into contemporary Muslim America. It talks about the faith and identities of Muslim immigrants as they create a new world in the states.
