Now that her dreams of being a published author have come true, Shereen is determined to keep using her voice to tell stories from different perspectives and to inspire budding writers to tell their own:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my writing tips is to do what you\u2019re passionate about and be unique. When you\u2019re young, you can be very easily influenced of what the [publishing] industry wants and what the market is publishing and what you think people want to read. For me, it\u2019s not about that. It\u2019s about what you<\/em> think is important to tell and then you tell it. Everyone has a unique perspective. So use that and it will give you a unique edge.<\/p>\n Shereen Malherbe<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m really grateful for the platform and I feel like I have a responsibility now. I stick to the reason that inspires me to write and that is to reframe perspectives. If I can move people emotionally then that\u2019s the new dream: that my writing introduces people to new perspectives, or I reach people who wouldn\u2019t necessarily read [stories from different cultures]. I want to inspire a new generation to write things that are authentic and real to them. Because I don\u2019t want people to not value the importance of what they contribute to society.\u201d<\/p>\n Books that push boundaries<\/strong><\/p>\n Shereen uses her experiences of growing up in Britain and living in the Middle East to create novels that straddle both the West and the East. She was inspired by travelling to Palestine to visit family to write Jasmine Falling<\/em>, which was quickly named one of the top 20 Best Books by Muslim Women by\u00a0Goodreads.com<\/a>\u00a0readers. Though she has received positive feedback from readers around the world, Shereen admits that she was initially worried when a literary agent suggested she change her main character to no longer be Palestinian:<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time I thought I was doing something fundamentally wrong, but when I did my degree and learnt more about Orientalism it made me realise that I had to carry on what I was doing. When you\u2019re a new writer you are so nervous, it\u2019s inevitable that negative feedback could disrupt new writers because they might not feel like their feelings are valid. When you are making art or writing I think it\u2019s really important that writers appreciate the value they can add.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we want to keep pushing the boundaries and making people consider things, art is such a great avenue for that. Art and literature help to bridge the gap. You can easily go and get a book on the Palestine-Israeli conflict but are you going to? Probably not. But if you love reading, you can read Jasmine Falling<\/em> in a couple of days and it\u2019ll give you a different perspective but it\u2019s also quite emotional because it is fiction, so you can hit all of those different reader expectations, but they\u2019re learning something along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Celebrating who you are<\/strong><\/p>\n Using fiction to help educate and inspire is also a theme in Shereen\u2019s latest children\u2019s book series, \u2018The Girl Who\u2026\u2019<\/em>, which is told from a young migrant\u2019s perspective. She initially had the idea as she wrote it for her children when they moved from the Middle East back to the UK:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I wanted to do is to say, \u2018You don\u2019t have to hide, it\u2019s a good thing to celebrate that you\u2019re from somewhere different\u2019. Sharing stories has always been a way to teach other people and also let them learn about it, and also to revisit homelands. How many times have characters like in The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em>, gone into a cupboard and they\u2019re in a different world? So the themes of both revisiting homelands and sharing stories is what we\u2019re doing in the migrant children\u2019s series.<\/p>\n Shereen’s latest book, The girl who slept under the moon<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWhen I last researched, UNICEF placed the number of international migrants in 2020 at 281 million; 36 million of them children. It\u2019s a huge amount of global movement, we have literally never seen this much movement before and instead of being something people have negative connotations about, I wanted to look about how they can celebrate and be confident of their differences and share that with children around them. Then as an author when you have feedback where people have connected to the book and said, \u2018That\u2019s exactly what happened to me\u2019, it reinforces the importance of books and the impact they have.\u201d<\/p>\n Find what motivates you <\/strong><\/p>\n Shereen worked with her Open University tutor to develop her second novel, The Tower, <\/em>which focuses on a Syrian refugee living in a London tower block. Since publishing in 2019, it received academic praise and been added to a required reading list in an American university. Shereen says that knowing her book is being used to spark important discussions is encouraging \u2013 not just for her but other writers:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good as it shows that institutions want to discuss these issues. I think it\u2019s really encouraging for diverse writers because it\u2019s saying \u2018Write, be passionate about what you\u2019re doing, and you never know where it might end up and what discussions it may open up that ultimately shape our future generations.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n You can learn more about Shereen and her writing at\u00a0https:\/\/shereenmalherbe.com<\/a><\/p>\n Or Instagram @shereenmalherbe<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Shereen-hero-image.jpg\")
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Carly\u00a0Sumner Sinfield is a Digital Content Officer in the Development Office at The Open University. She loves telling stories and has spent the past 10 years writing about everything from nappy bags to balance transfers. She holds a BA (Hons) in Journalism and Media Studies from Coventry University. When she\u2019s not writing, Carly enjoys reading, sharing good food with great people, and all things colourful.<\/p>\n