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Canongate has triumphed in a five-way auction to publish N S Nuseibeh's debut non-fiction collection, She Carries My Name, in Spring 2022.
Editor-at-large Ellah Wakatama acquired world rights from Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander.
"Nuseibeh’s collection of essays explores what it means to be a young British-Palestinian secular Muslim woman today with reflections on her ancestor, Nusaybah bint Ka'b Al-Ansariyah: one of the famous woman warriors thought to have fought alongside the Prophet Muhammed," reads the synopsis. "Drawing on the hadith, the Qur’an and the writings of a number of feminist Muslim scholars, Nuseibeh explores the origins of the hijab, Ramadan and romance in 17th-century Arabia, while also talking about the contemporary experience of being a secular Muslim woman. It is an exploration of myth-making and identity, religion and family, early Muslim history and contemporary Britain."
Nuseibeh is a Palestinian who grew up in East Jerusalem and is currently completing a DPhil at Oxford with research interests including the experience of refugees in the UK, the value of the humanities and socio-economic disadvantage in education policy. She formerly interned at Canongate and worked at Picador. She is currently a contributor to the Atlantic. Her story "Love Life" was shortlisted for the 2019 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
She said: "I'm just so excited and grateful for this opportunity – researching and writing about early Arabia and the incredible women of that period (Nusaybah among them), as well as the origins of so many contemporary debates on Islamic and Arab culture, feels like such a privilege. And I've always been such a big fan of Canongate's – I still can't quite believe I'm joining the home of authors like Matt Haig, Kevin Barry, Lemn Sissay and Amy Liptrot."
Wakatama added: "I was immediately struck by the originality and lucidity of Nuzha’s interrogations and by the power of her prose in this collection. She manages a confident elegance that makes for a pleasurable reading experience even as the author delves into challenging topics including the burden of history, religion, diaspora, sexuality."