Hanan Al-Shaykh

London-based Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh (Women of Sand and Myrrh) has written a gorgeous, triumphant memoir of her illiterate mother, who married at 14, was disgraced by divorce in her strict Shi’a community and yet ultimately transcended her circumstances through a love of film and literature. ... (more)Says a reviewer in The Independent: “I have never read a memoir which so clearly demonstrates art’s power to help us survive.”

The leading Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh's most recent novel, Only in London, was shortlisted for the 2001 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Also a short-story writer and playwright, she pays particular attention in her work to women's role in society and the relationship between the sexes. Hanan ... (more)was just seven years old when her mother, Kamila, sought a divorce from her father, who ran a strictly religious household. She will discuss her memoir The Locust and The Bird: My Mother's Story with Esther Freud, the author of Hideous Kinky and The Sea House, whose work has been translated into 13 languages. All tickets £8 per event, available online or by calling +44 (0)20 7209 1141. Concessions: £5, for LRB subscribers, Friends of the British Museum, students and OAPs (concessions available from the Bookshop or by phone only). Supported by: * The British Museum * Arts Council England * The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize