Alya Mooro Knihy

Egyptian-born and London-raised, Alya Mooro grew up between two cultures and felt a pull from both. Where could she turn for advice and inspiration when it seemed there was nobody else like her? Today, Mooro is determined to explore and explode the myth that she must identify either as Western or as one of almost 400 million other Arabs across the Middle East. Through countless interviews and meticulous research, as well as her own unique experience, Mooro gives voice to the Middle Eastern women who, like her, don't fit the mold. Women under pressure to conform to society's ideals of how a woman should look and behave, what she should want and be. Women who want to think and act and love freely, without feeling that every choice means picking a side. Women who are two things at once and, consequently, neither. Part memoir, part social exploration, this is a book for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider

Alya H is both a brilliant writer and a troubled soul. Very much part of the current zeitgeist in the 21st century, she suffers and lives in equal measure, feeling intensely every emotion including the utter blankness that comes upon any thinking person in this modern world. Inspired by people on TV, in films, by writers and poets, Alya H has constructed a kind of ode to the 21st-century adult. Every person who has lived and felt will recognise themselves in the sometimes absurd, often sad and at times darkly funny diatribe against life and a search for meaning in a pressurised and lonely world. Should be prescribed reading for every young adult.