Islamic Australia
March 7th 2007 07:44
Randa Abdel-Fattah is an Australian author of Egyptian and Palestinian descent. To date she has written two published novels for teens, 'Does My Head Look Big in This?' and '10 Things I Hate About Me'. She is also a lawyer.
Late last year, whilst working at a bookstore in Campbelltown, I was lucky enough to be involved with a talk given by Randa Abdel-Fattah at Campbelltown Library, where she also signed copies of her succesful debut novel, 'Does My Head Look Big in This?' The central premise of this book is that of a 16-year old muslim girl who decides to wear the hajib (the headscarf worn by muslim women as a sign of their faith), the only thing is - she goes to a non-muslim school and this culturally-significant act sets her apart from her peers. She just wants to be a normal girl.
I haven't read this book yet, so this isn't a review. I just thought I'd write a bit about the author, Randa Abdel-Fattah. Ms. Abdel-Fattah based this book on her own experiences as a teenage girl, when she was 12 she decided to wear the hajib and continued to wear it throughout her school years, despite the fact that she went to a catholic school. As you can see from the photo at the top of this page, she no longer wears the hajib. At the talk I attended she spoke about her experiences as a muslim girl in a predominantly non-muslim community and country, how empowered she felt by wearing the hajib, and also about her book in general - including a brief reading of an excerpt. The talk was attended by all kinds of people... Islamic people from all walks of life and backgrounds (including a young female muslim scientist from Campbelltown), your typical middle-class anglo-saxons, book fans in general, etc, etc.
After the talk Ms. Abdel-Fattah fielded some questions (and there were a lot of questions, it went over time a bit)... she was very articulate and intelligent and even though I like to think I'm pretty anti-racist I have to admit that a few stereotypes were dispelled in my mind at this meeting, not just by the author, but by the other muslims in the audience too. Ms. Abdel-Fattah said that deciding to stop wearing the hajib was a hard decision to make, but she had to do it as she felt she would never get ahead in her career as a lawyer in Australia whilst wearing it. She spoke of her hopes to be the first lawyer in Australia to wear the hajib, and says when she puts it back on it will be back on for good - when the time is right.
Anyway, her books sound great - funny, dramatic and with a point, kind of like if 'Looking For Alibrandi' had been written by a muslim. I was very impressed by Randa Abdel-Fattah's talk and I think she's an excellent role model - not just for muslim girls but for girls and people in general. Her tireless work in the inter-faith community should be commended.
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I haven't read any of Abdel-Fattah's books yet, but I hope to soon.
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