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Ilham Essalih

Essalih

Ilham Essalih is a Belgian-Arab book reviewer and PhD student in Postcolonial Literature. Her research focuses on gendered dimensions of postcolonial trauma in literature of Africa and the Arab world.

Book Club: Celestial Bodies is a complex intergenerational story set in the Omani village of al-Awafi, covering themes of love, slavery, madness and abuse.

15 October, 2019

Book Club: Asma Lamrabet attempts to debunk what she believes are 'myths' surrounding Muslim women by discussing and reinterpreting Quranic verses that directly address them.

20 June, 2019

Book Club: Elif Shafak's Black Milk is a beautiful and touching memoir delving into her attempts to balance motherhood with a writing career while dealing with postpartum depression.

06 March, 2019

Book Club: A beautiful and articulate novel, Silence is My Mother Tongue fuses themes of feminism, war and postcolonialism, portraying the story of refugees far from today's one-dimensional depiction.

06 February, 2019

Book Club: Notes on the Flesh is groundbreaking in its raw representation of disability and pain. It crushes taboos and speaks up about gender injustice in the Middle East.

23 January, 2019

Book Club: From short stories, to poetry and essays, The Things I would Tell You, successfully shows the diversity among British Muslim women, writes Ilham Essalih.

21 November, 2018

Book Club: Dina Torkia's debut book embraces style, entertainment and emotion, successfully portraying a refreshing, positive and uplifting representation of Muslim women, writes Ilham Essalih.

07 November, 2018