The Diverse Bookshelf – Details, episodes & analysis

Today, I’m so honoured to welcome Hala Alyan to the podcast. Hala is an award-winning Palestinian American writer, poet, and clinical psychologist whose work has long explored the intimate spaces between memory, home, displacement, and the inner worlds we navigate. Many readers know her through her poetry and her acclaimed novels Salt Houses and The Arsonists’ City, but her latest book, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, brings us into an even more intimate landscape. Structured in twelve chapters - each corresponding to a month of pregnancy — the memoir unfolds at the pace of a body hoping, fearing, changing, and remembering.

In this conversation, we explore how Hala writes about belonging, grief, and the complicated terrain of family and identity. We also spend time with the memoir’s deeply personal themes: infertility, baby loss, and the ways these experiences reshape identity and belonging - how they alter one’s relationship to the body, to lineage, and to the idea of home. Hala writes with remarkable honesty about her struggle with alcohol addiction and the difficult, courageous work of recovery, and she is equally candid about the complexities of marriage: the tensions, the ruptures, and the quiet forms of repair that make long-term partnership both challenging and deeply human.

We also reflect on the past two years, and how this moment for Palestine — the grief, the witnessing, the insistence on remembering - has shaped her understanding of heritage, responsibility, and where we locate ourselves in times of collective pain.

It’s a thoughtful, layered, and profoundly honest conversation, and I’m truly grateful to share it with you.

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This week, I'm joined by Ova Ceren, whose debut novel The Book of Heartbreak is a raw, tender, and compelling exploration of love, loss, and healing amid a fantasy world of angels and the other side. With lyrical prose and unflinching honesty, Ova takes readers on a journey through the intensity of different types of love and loss, while also throwing us into a family of secrets, unspoken histories and a journey of self-discovery. 

Ova Ceren writes bittersweet tales of heartbreak and magic, often inspired by Turkish and Ottoman folklore. Blessed (or perhaps cursed) with a mathematical brain, she earned a degree in Computer Science and a master’s that led her into a career in IT, taking her from Türkiye to Britain. After years of wrestling with algorithms in corporate jungles, she finally eloped with a debut novel instead.Ova now lives in Cambridge, UK, with her husband, son, and a spirited flock of runner ducks.

In our conversation, we talk about what inspired her to write such a story, moving into writing from being a software engineer, the fantasy genre, heartbreak, Turkey and Turkish history and so much more. I'm so pleased to be sharing this conversation with you. 

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Today’s episode is part of a special mini-series called Ramadan reflections, where I talk to guests about faith, life and Ramadan.

 I’m thrilled to be joined by poet and creative producer, Imrana Mahmood for a conversation about creativity and faith, the role of Ramadan in the creative process, and the importance of Muslim representation in literature and on stage and screen.

Imrana Mahmood is a poet, curator, and creative producer who has dedicated her career to amplifying underrepresented voices in the arts. With a background in community-driven projects, she has worked extensively to create spaces for diverse creatives to thrive. Her work is deeply rooted in storytelling, activism, and faith, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and spirituality. She has collaborated with leading arts organizations and has played a key role in shaping conversations around Muslim representation in the UK’s literary and creative industries.

In this episode, we’ll be diving into Imrana’s journey—how faith informs her creativity, the challenges and opportunities for Muslim artists today, and what true representation looks like in the arts. 

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In this episode, I chat to the lovely Jyoti Patel, author of the Merky Books Young Writer's Prize for 2021. Her debut novel is a stunning, moving coming-of-age story of a British-Gujarati family living in North London. 

The Things That We Lost s told from the perspectives of 18-year-old Nik and his British Indian mother Avani, flitting between the past and present as Nik searches for answers surrounding the circumstances of his father’s death. An extract of the novel was selected as the winning submission out of over 2000 entries for the 2021 #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize.

Earlier this month, Jyoti was selected as one of The Observer's 10 Best New Novelists for 2023. She is also a graduate of the Creative Writing Prose Fiction MA from the University of East Anglia and she joins us today from London. 

In this episode, we talk about family dynamics, secrets, mental health, identity, language and being asked where we're from.

Connect with me on instagram:

www.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod
www.instagram.com/readwithsamia 

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In this episode, I talk to the lovely Melissa Fu about her debut novel, Peach Blossom Spring. We talk about the origins of the story, finding home, confused identities and the constant longing for belonging, acceptance and self-love.

Melissa Fu grew up in Northern New Mexico and now lives near Cambridge, UK, with her husband and children. She graduated from Rice University, cum laude, with a double major in Physics and English and went on to earn a Masters in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Masters in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  She has worked in education as a teacher, curriculum developer, and consultant.

Her first novel, Peach Blossom Spring, was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick in the UK and a 2022 Indies Introduce title for the American Booksellers Association. It is available in English, Dutch and Italian.  Hungarian, Romanian and German editions are forthcoming.

Peach Blossom Spring is her first novel.

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In this episode, I talk to the lovely Tasneem Abdur-Rashid about her debut novel, Finding Mr. Perfectly Fine. We talk about the struggles of modern dating for young Muslims, finding love, writing and the stories we wish we had while growing up. 

Tasneem Abdur-Rashid is a British Bengali writer born and raised in London. A mother of two, Tasneem has worked across media, PR and communications both in the UK and in the UAE. Today, Tasneem spends her days writing novels and her nights co-hosting the award-winning podcast Not Another Mum Pod – and in between, she’s busy trying (and often failing) to be super mum, super wife and super chef. Having recently completed a Master’s in Creative Writing with distinction, Tasneem’s debut rom-com Finding Mr Perfectly Fine was published by Zaffre/Bonnier in July 2022.

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In this episode, I chat to the lovely Jendella Benson about her debut novel, Hope & Glory.

We had a great chat about her writing, the messiness of family life, love, south London, class, gentrification and growing up with immigrant parents.

Jendella is author of the novel Hope & Glory and Head of Editorial at Black Ballad – the award-winning digital platform for Black British women. She is also the host of the podcast Black Ballad Presents: The Survival Guide.

She has written for The Sunday Times STYLE Magazine, Metro Online and Independent Voices, as well as previously been a columnist for Media Diversified, MTV UK, and Christian Today.

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Sabba Khan is a born and bred East Londoner. Originally trained as an architect at Central Saint Martins and The University of Westminster, Sabba frames her minimal architectural comics through the lived experience of her working class, second generation immigrant upbringing.

Sabba’s debut graphic novel ‘The Roles We Play’ has won the Jhalak Prize ’22, and Broken Frontier’s Break Out Talent ’22. Nominations include the Ignatz prize, RSL’s Ondaatje Prize, and AOI’s World Illustrations Awards, as well as being nominated for best books of 2021 in the Guardian. Collaborators for Khan’s comics work include The British Council, SOAS, NHS, London Borough of Newham, JCWI and The British Library. The Roles We Play is available in the US under the title ‘What is Home, Mum?’.  

On this episode, we had a really insightful conversation on graphic novels as a form of literature, identity, belonging, Kashmiri experiences and unpacked notions of space, belonging and identity. I loved speaking to Sabba, and hope you find much to take away from our conversation.

You can buy The Roles We Play here:

https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5890/9781912408306

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I read Shahd Alshammari's memoir, Head Above Water, a few months ago and was blown away from the first page! Shahd writes so beautifully, in a way that is poetic, raw and open. She gives us an insight into her life, living with Multiple Sclerosis. In this conversation, we talk about her diagnosis, how her illness has affected her life, what she wishes more people knew, and the field of academia. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed chatting to Shahd.

Dr. Shahd Alshammari is a Kuwaiti-Palestinian author and academic. She is the author of Notes on the Flesh (Faraxa Press, 2017) and Head Above Water (Neem Tree Press, 2022). 

Alshammari teaches literature and has written numerous stories and creative nonfiction. Her research areas include illness narratives and disability studies.

Buy 'Head Above Water' here:

https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5890/9781911107408

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On this episode, I chat to the lovely Zoulfa Katouh about her debut novel, As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow. This stunningly beautiful YA novel is the heart-breaking story of 18 year old Salama, working in a hospital in the Syria during the war. Salama witnesses unimaginable horrors, and is faced with the gut-wrenching decision of whether to stay, or to leave and seek refuge elsewhere.

Zoulfa Katouh is a Canadian writer with Syrian roots. A trilingual pharmacist, currently pursuing a master’s in drug sciences, Zoulfa is the first Syrian author to be published in both the US and the UK in the young adult category. When she's not talking to herself in the
woodland forest, she's drinking iced coffee, baking aesthetic cookies and cakes, and telling everyone who will listen about how BTS paved the way. Her dream is to get Kim Nam-joon to read one of her books. As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow is her debut novel. 

You can by the book here:

https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5890/9781526648525

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