Leila Aboulela Quotes
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Sudan is not Arab enough for Arabs and not African enough for Africans.
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My characters are not role-model Muslims, but they struggle to make choices using Muslim logic.
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I'm concerned that Islam has not just been politicised but that it's becoming an identity. This is like turning religion into a football match; it's a distraction from the real thing.
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I was 24 years old and stuck in a strange place with two boisterous little boys, and my husband was working offshore on the oil rigs. It was a life for which I wasn't prepared.
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I write fiction that reflects Islamic logic: fictional worlds where cause and effect are governed by Muslim rationale. However, my characters do not necessarily behave as 'good' Muslims; they are not ideals or role models.
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I grew up in a very westernised environment and went to a private American school. But my personality was shy and quiet, and I wanted to wear the hijab but didn't have the courage, as I knew my friends would talk me out of it.
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I read a lot of fiction.
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I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes!
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When I was growing up, we spoke Egyptian, we ate Egyptian food, we had other Egyptian friends. It was my father's preference.
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I wasn't trained to write non-fiction.
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The coverage of Islam in the media is becoming more sophisticated, and there is more access to knowledge.
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My faith was started off by my grandmother and mother, and so I always saw it as a very private, personal thing.
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My father married out of the family. I also married outside the family.
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My grandmother studied medicine in the Forties, which was very rare in Egypt, and my mother was a university professor, so my idea of religion wasn't about a woman not working or having to dress in a certain way; it was more to do with the faith.
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My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer.
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Many Arabic/Islamic words have now entered the English dictionary, such as haj, hijab, Eid, etc., and I no longer need to put them in italics or explain them.
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That's what religion teaches: that life is a temporary thing which is going to dissolve one day.
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When you write about a Muslim woman, like I did with my previous novels - 'Minaret', for example, which is about a woman who starts to wear the hijab - it sets all the alarm bells ringing.
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It was 1989, and the word 'Muslim' wasn't even really used in Britain at the time; you were either black or Asian.