OUR AUTHORS
Ahlam Bsharat

Ahlam Bsharat
Ahlam Bsharat is a Palestinian writer who grew up in a village in Northern Palestine. She completed her Master’s Degree in Arabic Literature at An-Najah National University in Nablus. Besides poetry, picture books, short stories, novels, and memoirs, she has written a number of television and radio scripts. Her books have received many awards and recommendations. Ismee Alharakee Farasha (translated into the English as Code Name: Butterfly) was included in the IBBY Honor List for 2012, a biennial selection of outstanding, recently published books from more than seventy countries. Ismee Alharakee Farasha and Ashjaar lil-Naas al-Ghaa’ibeen (translated into English as Trees for the Absentees) were both runners up for the Etisalat Award For Children’s Arabic Literature in 2013. Code Name: Butterfly was shortlisted for the UK-based Palestine Book Awards in 2017.
Ahlam has been active in numerous cultural forums, and her craft has taken her to Belgium, France and Spain. where she was artist in residence. She has also led many creative writing workshops for children and adults, including at the Emirates Literature Festival in Dubai.
Books by Ahlam Bsharat
Ashjaar lil-Naas al-Ghaa’ibeen
Young love, meddling relatives, heart-to-hearts with friends real and imagined – Philistia’s world is that of an ordinary university student, except that in occupied Palestine, and when your father is in indefinite detention, nothing is straightforward.
READ MOREIsmee Alharakee Farasha
With irony and poignant teenage idealism, Butterfly draws us into her world of adult hypocrisy, sibling rivalries, girlfriends’ power plays, unrequited love…not to mention the political tension of life under occupation.
READ MORETrees for the Absentees
Young love, meddling aunts, heart-to-hearts with friends real and imagined, Philistia’s world is that of an ordinary student. Except in Palestine, and with your father in jail, nothing is ordinary. With trees uprooted around her, she seeks a place of refuge, somewhere she can plant a memory for the ones she’s lost, for the people who are vanishing.
READ MORECode Name: Butterfly
With irony and poignant teenage idealism, Butterfly draws us into her world of adult hypocrisy, sibling rivalries, girlfriends’ power plays, unrequited love…not to mention the political tension of life under occupation. As she observes her fragile environment with all its conflicts, Butterfly is compelled to question everything around her.
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