Stay ConnectedWelcome to The Diverse Bookshelf. I’m Samia Aziz, celebrating the power of literature and the voices of authors and change makers from the global majority. Join me as we explore the stories that inspire, connect, and transform our world. Each week I interview an inspiring guest about a whole host of themes and issues while focusing on diverse literature.
Let’s uncover the stories that truly matter—together.
Copyright: © 2025 The Diverse Bookshelf
My guest on the show this week, is Sim Kern, an author whose work I came across only recently. Alongside being a published author, Sim is a content creator, using Instagram and Tik Tok as key tools in her activist life, making videos that inform, educate and empower. Sim is an anti-zionist Jew, dedicating huge amounts of time to the Palestinian liberation movement, while dismantling Israeli propaganda and narratives about the Zionist colonial project.
At the time of recording, the genocidal war on Gaza has been taking place for almost 4 months, with over 30,000 people in Gaza having been killed. Over a million people have been displaced from their homes and are starving, living without clean water, shelter, healthcare, and have nowhere safe to go.
Sim Kern is a Gulf Coast author and environmental journalist writing about climate change, queer identity, and social justice. Their debut horror novella, Depart, Depart!, was selected for the Honor List for the 2020 Otherwise Award. Their short story collection, Real Sugar is Hard to Find, was hailed in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as, “a searing, urgent, but still achingly tender work that will wow any reader of speculative fiction.” As a journalist, they report on petrochemical polluters and drag space billionaires. Sim’s latest novel is called The Free People's Village, set in an alternative reality of 2020, where a war on climate change has been announced.
You can find Sim on social media here:
www.instagram.com/sim_bookstagrams_badly
https://www.tiktok.com/@simkern
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On the show this week, I'm speaking to Sheela Banerjee about her book, What's In a Name.
Our names are possibly one of the most important pillars of our identities. Often given to us by somebody else, usually parents or a family member, they usually mean something. For many of us, our names reflect a tie to our heritage, our faith, and our history. What is even more interesting, is how our names interact with the world we currently find ourselves living in. This week, I’m speaking to Sheela Banerjee about her book, What’s In A Name, where she explores all these things and more. It’s fascinating.
Sheela Banerjee is a journalist and academic and worked for many years at the BBC and Channel 4, directing programmes which told powerful stories of individual lives. She has also worked as a radio reporter and BBC producer on current affairs and political programmes. She left TV to undertake a PhD on Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot. What’s in a Name? is her first book.
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On the show this week, I'm speaking to journalist and author, Azad Essa about his latest book, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel. At the time of recording this episode, the genocide in Gaza has been going on for over 90 days, with over 30,000 people having been killed, and 1.9 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. The population of Gaza is being starved amid relentless bombardments targeting journlists, authors, institutes, hospitals and schools. Right now, more than ever, it it important for us to take a deeper look at the world around us.
In his latest book, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel, Azad Essa brings to the fore the important relationship between the two countries, discussing the occupations of Kashmir and Palestine, as well as the attacks in India on Muslim and minority communities. He encourages us to not turn away from this critical relationship, expanding our understanding of major players within the political arena. This is more important than ever now, as at the time of recording, Israel’s attacks and genocide in Gaza relentlessly continue. Over 22,000 people have been reported dead, and with thousands trapped under rubble, the real figure is likely to be much higher.
Azad Essa is a senior reporter for Middle East Eye based between Johannesburg and New York City.
Azad previously worked for Al Jazeera English between 2010-2018 in which he was part of a team that won numerous awards for our breaking news and in depth coverage of the Arab Spring. Azad has reported from across the African continent, as well as South Asia, covering politics, development and poverty.
His four-part investigation into the shocking behavior of peacekeepers in war zones, titled: Why do some peacekeepers rape? won the 2017 UN Correspondents Association International Prize (Silver) for coverage on UN activities.
Azad has also written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, among others.
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This week's podcast episode is a super interesting conversation with Celina Baljeet Basra. In Celina’s debut novel, Happy, she introduces us to the protagonist of the same name – Happy. Coming from a farming family in Punjab, we follow him as he makes a huge decision to leave his family home in India and to travel to Europe for work. Celina provides us with a witty and nuanced look into the food industry in Europe, as well as the experience of labour migrants and their families. She raises vital questions around human dignity, human rights, the pursuit for happiness and success in life, and whether we are asking the right questions with regards to living ethically. Happy is written in a non-traditional format, making the reading experience so much more interesting and nuanced.
Celina is a writer and curator based in Berlin. She graduated from the Free University of Berlin, where she studied Art History in a Global Context, and has since worked with Berlin Biennale, Galerie im Turm, and other institutions at the local and international level. She has a range of residencies under her belt and she was awarded both curatorial and literary research scholarships from the Berlin Senate. She is a founder of The Department of Love, a curatorial collective.
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This week's guest on the show is the hugely talented Isabella Hammad, author of The Parisian, and most recently, Enter Ghost. I love Isabella’s work, which is always so thoughtful, beautifully written, multi-layered and hugely informative and insightful. As a British Palestinian, Isabella tells stories of Palestinian families, enabling us to understand better, Palestinian history, Colonial projects, and what we are witnessing unfold in Palestine right now.
At the time of recording this episode, towards the end of 2023, the most recent war on Gaza has been taking place for over 75 days, and the official death toll has crossed 20,000 people. Thousands are still trapped under rubble, and millions are also at risk from starvation, disease and the cold.
I’m so glad to be talking about Palestine, and Isabella’s work today.
Isabella Hammad was born in London. Her writing has appeared in Conjunctions, The Paris Review, The New York Times and elsewhere. She was awarded the 2018 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and a 2019 O. Henry Prize. Her first novel The Parisian (2019) won a Palestine Book Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Betty Trask Award from the Society of Authors in the UK. She was a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, and has received literary fellowships from MacDowell and the Lannan Foundation. She is currently a fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris.
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This week, I bring you a special end of year episode! My husband, Malik Wasim, took to the interviewer's seat, and hosted a Q&A, asking me all about the show, books and bookstagram. I put a post out on Instagram asking friends and followers for their questions, so I hope this episode is fun and helpful :)
2023 has been a great year for the show. I moved to weekly episodes this year, and have had so many incredible, powerful and moving conversations. I'm so proud of, and grateful for this space, where we're holding important conversations, talking about things that really matter and sharing our stories.
Please continue listening to the show in 2024, where I hope to be giving much more of the same, interviewing inspiring guests and talking all about books.
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On the show this week, I’m speaking to Assia Belgacem a French-Algerian writer and book critic based in Bordeaux, France. Assia runs the Instagram account, @shereadsox, where she writes nuanced book reviews and gives excellent book recommendations. In this episode, we talk about Assia’s identity: Algerian and French, and also about being Muslim in an increasingly right-wing, France. With hijab bans in place in the country, Assia works as a teacher in a government school, where she is unable to cover her hair. We talk about so much, including French and Algerian history, political activism, books and so much more.
At the time of recording, It has been almost 70 days since the beginning of Israel’s most recent war on Gaza, where so far over 20,000 people have been killed. Thousands are still trapped under rubble, and shortages of food and water are becoming lethal. Naturally, we talked about Palestine today, too.
Assia's work focuses on decolonization, French politics and African/Swana literature.
Follow Assia on instagram:
www.instagram.com/shereadsox
As always, I hope this episode is interesting and enjoyable! Connect with me on social media, as I'd love to hear from you.
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At the time of recording this episode, we are on day 62 of Israel’s most recent war on Gaza. The situation is beyond horrific, as over 20,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been killed and 1.7 million have been displaced from their homes. Numerous international humanitarian laws have been broken as civialian areas, hospitals and schools have been attacked, and white phospherous has been used on civilian populations, with catastrophic impacts.
On today’s episode, I’m speaking with Rashid Khalidi, author and historian about understanding the last 100 years, in an attempt to truly understand and uncover what is happening today. We talk about the Balfour declaration of 1917, the end of British colonial rule in Palestine, the growth of the Israeli colonial project, the ways in which Palestinians have resisted, and so much more.
Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1970 and a D. Phil. from Oxford University in 1974. He has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and the University of Chicago. He is co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association. He has written or co-edited ten books, including The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, which we’ll be speaking about today. He has written over a hundred scholarly articles on aspects of Middle East history and politics, as well as opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune Vanguardia, The London Review of Books, and The Nation. Rashid Khalidi lived in Beirut, and was deeply engaged in Lebanese politics in the 70s, and during the Lebanese war of 1982. He has played an active role in peace talks and negotiations in the region in the 80s and 90s.
Buy The Hundred Years' War on Palestine here:
https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-hundred-years-war-on-palestine-a-history-of-settler-colonial-conquest-and-resistance-rashid-i-khalidi/2901891?ean=9781781259344
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On today’s show, I’m joined once again by super talented writer, Etaf Rum. Etaf has written 2 powerful novels, A Woman is No Man, and most recently, Evil Eye. Her work is an intricate look into the lives of immigrant Palestinian families, dealing with serious themes of inter-generational trauma, identity, mental health, belonging, family, motherhood and so much more.
As we recorded today’s episode, Israel has been relentlessly attacking Gaza, Palestine for over 50 days. 20,000 people have been killed, including 8,000 children and 1.7 million people have been displaced from their homes. There is an increase in the spread of disease, and people are struggling to find enough food to eat or clean water to drink. With ruthless attacks on hospitals, the healthcare system has collapsed, and premature babies and Palestinian men, women and children are dying without adequate healthcare. Etaf Rum, a Palestinian-American woman herself has been vocally supporting the Palestinian cause and demands for an urgent and permanent ceasefire, but has come under fire by some of her readers, raising huge questions around whether or not readers are truly understanding the stories Etaf is telling around Palesine, the Nakba of 1948, inter-generational trauma and occupation.
On the show this week, Etaf talks about what she has experienced in her own life and in the reader community since October 7th. We talk about literary empathy, performative reading, inter-generational trauma, understanding mainstream narratives about Israel and Zionism and why these are harmful, and how the liberation of us all are inter-linked.
I'm grateful to Etaf for joining me on the show again today, and I hope you take something meaningful away from this conversation.
I'd really appreciate it if you could rate, follow, subscribe and like, as it really helps more people discover my show. Come connect with me on social media - I'd love to hear from you.
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TW: mentions of miscarriage, infertility and grief.
This episode was recorded in late October.
I’m so pleased to be joined by Huma Qureshi on the show this week, talking about her work and her first novel and latest book, Playing Games. Playing Games tells the story of two sisters, Hana and Mira, who like most sisters, love each other deeply but have a relationship that is flawed and complex. Mira, an inspiring playwright, overhears a very private and personal conversation her sister is having with her husband. Mira finds her sister’s words so powerful, they set off the cogs of writers inspiration in her mind, and she writes the scene of a play exploring marriage for a modern-day couple. Huma poses questions about using real life for fiction, and where the boundaries and lines are. Is it ever okay to write about someone else’s life, and what happens if that someone else is your sister? Hana herself is going through a tumultuous time in her marriage, as she experiences loss and deep longing for motherhood.
Huma Qureshi is the award-winning author of four books, including How We Met: A Memoir Of Love and Other Misadventures and the short story collection, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love, both published to critical acclaim in 2021. In 2022, How We Met was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Non-Fiction award, and Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love was long listed for both The Jhalak Prize and The Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her first book, In Spite of Oceans, received The John C Laurence Award. In 2020, Huma won the Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize, with her story The Jam Maker. Her novel, Playing Games, will be published in November 2023. Huma writes the popular newsletter Dear Huma and teaches a variety of creative writing courses via her website, www.humaqureshi.co.uk
I really hope you love this episode, and as always I'd love to hear from you.
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