OUR BOOKS
Head Above Water

PUBLICATION DATE: May 30, 2022
PAPERBACK ISBN: 9781911107408
HARDBACK ISBN: 9781911107392
EBOOK ISBN: 9781911107415
AUDIOBOOK ISBN: 9781911107422
Collection: Neem Tree Press
Head Above Water
By
Shahd Alshammari
Cover designed by James Jones
Head Above Water takes us into a space of intimate conversations on illness and society’s stigmatization of disabled bodies. We are invited in to ask the big questions about life, loss, and the place of the other. The narrative builds a bridge that reminds us of our common humanity and weaves the threads that tie us all together. Through conversations about women’s identities, bodies, and our journeys through life, we arrive at a politics of love, survival, and hope.
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Shahd Alshammari in Conversation with Mikey Muhanna from Afirkra.
Shahd Alshammari talked about her work as a writer, academic, and researcher in the field of Gulf literature and disability studies with Mikey Muhanna from Afirkra.
Read more (YouTube)
‘Head Above Water’ by Shahd Alshammari – Book Review
Head Above Water is not a memoir but a reflection on illness and it doesn’t just focuses on the narrator’s journey but divulges into the stories of some of her students and peers whose lives have been affected by illness.
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5 Must Read Memoirs from Disabled Women
In Head Above Water Shahd Alshammari shares her experiences of MS as an Arab woman, confronting the intersection of culture, religion and disability with her personal narrative of illness.
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If the Body Could Speak: an Interview with Dr Shahd Alshammari
The Publishing Post interviewed Dr Shahd Alshammari about her book Head Above Water, which was published on World MS Day. In this interview, Shahd tells us about how it feels to give marginalised voices a platform, coming to terms with her early diagnosis of MS and how her writing is opening up conversations about disability
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Memoir ‘Head Above Water’ explores multiple sclerosis through the lens of an Arab woman
Kuwaiti-Palestinian writer Shahd Alshammari's new book has been released on World MS Day.
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Challenging Narratives on Disability, Womanhood, and Arabness Through Literature: A Memoir from the Gulf
Kuwaiti academic and author Shahd Alshammari reflects on her ground-breaking memoir which challenges the dominant narrative of silence around disability and women’s bodies.
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Head Above Water: When illness exiles the mind from the body
Book Club: Assistant professor, academic, and writer Dr Shahd Alshammari talks to The New Arab about her new book, an illness narrative reflecting on living with multiple sclerosis in Kuwait.
Read more (The New Arab)
Disability Research Forum
“Shahd’s sensuous prose explores the manipulation of memory, the question of time, and gender politics…intricacies of love, …body, motherhood, the pervasive power of language, the power of women’s education, and synergy between Professor and student. It is a brave book.” – Jokha Alharthi, Author of Celestial Bodies, winner of the International Man Booker Prize
Read more (Disability Research Forum)The Ideal Woman: How Can Women Embrace Their Womanhood While Being Under The Male Gaze?
Interview with Shahd Alshammari on the Ideal Woman: How Can Women Embrace Their Womanhood While Being Under The Male Gaze?
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Disabled people exist everywhere – so why aren’t more books written about us?
Shahd Alshammari could not find role models for disabled Arab women in literature, so she set out to write a book that helped tell her story. She felt a need to correct this gap in literature but she also wanted to see more raw stories about those struggling to fit into societies geared towards the able-bodied.
Read more (The National News)
A Kuwaiti Professor Makes Disability Awareness Part of Her Teaching
The voices of people with disabilities are too often absent among scholars and researchers, Alshammari told Al-Fanar Media in an interview via Zoom.
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Multiple Sclerosis and its Literary Representation: A Talk with Reema Humood
“As a disabled female academic living with (and researching) MS, I sat down with the author to discuss her novel’s gendered elements of disability. In particular, I wanted to know more about her position as abled-bodied author and her choice of MS as the protagonist’s disease.”
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‘Disability differs when you are an Arab’: Shifting obsolete notions of disability within the Arab world
Disability rights in MENA: Raya al-Jadir, co-founder of disability lifestyle magazine Disability Horizons elaborates on the archaic perception of the disabled within in the Arab World, and what needs to change to encourage a more inclusive future.
Read more (The New Arab)
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