LOVE IN A HEADSCARF
Love in a Headscarf
Shelina Janmohamed
UK & Commonwealth rights: Aurum Press
US rights: Beacon Press
Indian (English language) rights: Amaryllis
Film option: Parallax East
Arabic rights: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation
Dutch rights: The House of Books
German rights: Luebbe
Indonesian rights: Mizan Publishing House
Italian rights: Piemme
Turkish rights: Pegasus
All other rights available
Winner of the Muslim Writers' Awards 2009 Best Published Non-Fiction
Winner of the Muslim Writers' Awards 2008 Best Unpublished Non-Fiction
'Irreverent and feminine' - The Guardian
'Hilarious' - The Daily Mail
'An Islamic spin on the Looking for the One genre' - Harper's Bazaar
'I loved your book. Fresh, sweet, joyful and full of tender moments. You make the reader wish they were you and that is a huge achievement. The book breezes along, making it a gripping and enjoyable read' - Leila Aboulela, author of The Translator, Minaret, and Coloured Lights
Love may seem a strange word to put in the same sentence as ‘Muslim woman’. But beneath the translucent veils lie beating hearts, dreams of love, imaginations replete with fairy tales and princes, of happily ever after. What does love mean to a Muslim woman? How does she go about finding Prince Charming?
The media is endlessly filled with stories about Muslims and Islam – these have captured the nation’s consciousness. But where is the real human interest in these stories? What universal questions and emotions lie beneath the headlines and shocking stories once the politics is stripped away?
Love in a Headscarf is a light-hearted yet sensitive book about growing up in Britain as an educated hijab-wearing Muslim woman trying to find both herself Mr Right. Through the challenges of finding Love through traditional Asian and Muslim means, Shelina Janmohamed grapples with her dreams of a Prince Charming created from Hollywood dramas and romantic comedies. But this is not a clichéd book about arranged marriage – far from it. The search for a partner is the backdrop to creating Shelina's own and her reader’s understanding of love and life through her faith and identity as a British Muslim woman. How does she deal with the first generation Muslim community and their cultures, values and foibles? How does she make her own choices and learn to be confident in them and the way she wants to live her life?
Shelina is your conspirator. She lets you in on secrets about being a British, Asian, Muslim woman. She explains to you the unspoken rules of the search, for meetings and proposals. She introduces you to the real life aunties and matchmakers and the traditional and more modern ways of finding Mr Right. She questions and explains the Muslim values around marriage and the differences between Asian and Islamic weddings. Smiling cheekily at you from under her headscarf, you may never have imagined what goes on in the life of Muslim women. Are the stereotypes that you see day in day out in the media about Muslims really true? You will put the book down at the end having found a new and unexpected friend in her.
Readers of whatever background or persuasion will be able to relate to Shelina's angst, humour and determination at trying to have it all – career, social life, romance and faith. Above all, Love in a Headscarf is a journey to try and understand what life is really all about.
Shelina Janmohamed was recently named as one of the UK's Muslim Women Power 100 list by The Times newspaper and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
She writes her own award-winning blog at www.spirit21.co.uk. She was named Best Non Fiction Writer at the Muslim Writers Awards, and also won Best Blog and Best Female Blog in the online Brass Crescent Awards.
She writes for The Guardian, The National and EMEL magazine and appears regularly on TV, radio and in print to comment on Islam, Muslim and Muslim women's issues.
She has taken part in the Foreign Office "Projecting British Islam" programme visiting Darfur, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Indonesia. She is a creator and organiser of social and cultural events for young British Muslims as well as the host of the annual ‘Eid in the Square’ event which is held in Trafalgar Square. Shelina is a trustee of the Windsor Fellowship, a charitable organisation that focuses on education and employment for individuals from ethnic minorities, and she is also a mentor with Mosaic, the Muslim mentoring network under the patronage of the Prince of Wales. She was born and brought up in London and she studied at New College, Oxford.
