Ova Ceren on switching careers, fantasy and family secrets

Today, I’m so honoured to welcome Hala Alyan to the podcast. Hala is an award-winning Palestinian American writer, poet, and clinical psychologist whose work has long explored the intimate spaces between memory, home, displacement, and the inner worlds we navigate. Many readers know her through her poetry and her acclaimed novels Salt Houses and The Arsonists’ City, but her latest book, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home, brings us into an even more intimate landscape. Structured in twelve chapters - each corresponding to a month of pregnancy — the memoir unfolds at the pace of a body hoping, fearing, changing, and remembering.In this conversation, we explore how Hala writes about belonging, grief, and the complicated terrain of family and identity. We also spend time with the memoir’s deeply personal themes: infertility, baby loss, and the ways these experiences reshape identity and belonging - how they alter one’s relationship to the body, to lineage, and to the idea of home. Hala writes with remarkable honesty about her struggle with alcohol addiction and the difficult, courageous work of recovery, and she is equally candid about the complexities of marriage: the tensions, the ruptures, and the quiet forms of repair that make long-term partnership both challenging and deeply human.We also reflect on the past two years, and how this moment for Palestine — the grief, the witnessing, the insistence on remembering - has shaped her understanding of heritage, responsibility, and where we locate ourselves in times of collective pain.It’s a thoughtful, layered, and profoundly honest conversation, and I’m truly grateful to share it with you.Support the show

This week, I'm joined by Ova Ceren, whose debut novel The Book of Heartbreak is a raw, tender, and compelling exploration of love, loss, and healing amid a fantasy world of angels and the other side. With lyrical prose and unflinching honesty, Ova takes readers on a journey through the intensity of different types of love and loss, while also throwing us into a family of secrets, unspoken histories and a journey of self-discovery. Ova Ceren writes bittersweet tales of heartbreak and magic, often inspired by Turkish and Ottoman folklore. Blessed (or perhaps cursed) with a mathematical brain, she earned a degree in Computer Science and a master’s that led her into a career in IT, taking her from Türkiye to Britain. After years of wrestling with algorithms in corporate jungles, she finally eloped with a debut novel instead.Ova now lives in Cambridge, UK, with her husband, son, and a spirited flock of runner ducks.In our conversation, we talk about what inspired her to write such a story, moving into writing from being a software engineer, the fantasy genre, heartbreak, Turkey and Turkish history and so much more. I'm so pleased to be sharing this conversation with you. Support the show

Today I’m joined joined by Saima Begum, a British-Bangladeshi writer whose voice is courageous, lyrical, and intent on bringing untold histories out of the silence.Saima Begum lives in London, and though The First Jasmines is her debut novel, she has already made her mark - she won the MFest Short Story Competition in 2021. Her novel The First Jasmines (published 31 July 2025 with Hajar Press) is set during the final stages of the Bangladesh Liberation War, in 1971, and follows two sisters, Lucky and Jamila, who are captured by Pakistani soldiers and held in a detention-camp.  Locked in a single room by the river, they see outside a barred window the white jasmines blooming day and night, even as the brutal violence of war rages all around. What emerges in The First Jasmines is not just a story of war and the suffering inflicted, but a deeply human account of survival, memory, and the afterlives of violence. Begum explores how women in the detention camp develop inner lives even under extreme oppression: how they talk among themselves, remember their lives before, reflect on motherhood, marriage, beauty, bodily autonomy, and struggle for dignity.  In Begum’s words, she felt she “didn’t see that reflected in the literature” about Bangladesh and its war - this gap compelled her to write. In this episode, we talk about silences, the stories we inherit, womanhood, identity, survival, hope and so much more. I'm honoured to share this conversation with you. Support the show

This week, I'm thrilled to be in conversation with Professor Sunny Singh.Sunny Singh was born in India and over the years her life has spanned continents and languages.  She earned a BA in English and American Literature at Brandeis University, followed by a master’s in Spanish Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a PhD from the University of Barcelona. Over time, she has written novels, creative nonfiction, essays, and short stories; she also serves as Professor of Creative Writing and Inclusion in the Arts at London Metropolitan University. Beyond her writing, Sunny has been a powerful force for literary equity. In 2017 she launched the Jhalak Prize, a prize for writers of colour in the UK and Ireland, and continues to engage deeply with questions of decolonisation, representation and the literary ecosystem.  In recognition of her contributions to letters, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her new short story collection, Refuge: Stories of War (and Love) (released August 2025) is a striking, ambitious volume that brings into conversation the most urgent and often silenced narratives of conflict, displacement, and resilience.  Over its dozen or so stories, the collection moves across continents and histories - touching on war zones, refugee lives, gendered violence, memory, and the possibility of tenderness even amid devastation. What sets Refuge apart is how it refuses easy binaries: perpetrators sometimes carry scars of suffering; survivors negotiate moral compromise and loss; the stories do not dwell on revenge but insist on empathy, nuance, and the endurance of human dignity.  Still, the collection does not shy away from brutality—sexual violence, war crimes, colonial legacies—and the way these violences embed themselves in bodies, histories, homes and memory.  And yet the final gesture of many of these stories is not surrender. They gesture toward renewal, connection, and the redemptive potential in telling the stories we fear.Support the show

For today’s episode, I’m joined by Tasneem Abdur-Rashid for the third time in three years! Tasneem is a communications professional, writer, and author of the powerful new novel Odd Girl Out. Tasneem’s work explores identity, faith, family, and belonging, with characters and stories that speak to experiences rarely seen in mainstream publishing.Odd Girl Out follows the story of 15-year-old Maariyah who is navigating friendship, love, and the weight of expectations, while also confronting the unspoken challenges of mental health and community pressures. Her life is uprooted following the divorce of her parents, and she leaves behind a life of glitz and glamour in Dubai, for the rather less impressive, London. It’s a novel that is both deeply relatable and refreshingly bold in its honesty.In our conversation, we talk about the inspiration behind the book, Tasneem’s journey as a writer, divorce and family, and the importance of seeing authentic Muslim representation in literature.I’m so honoured to share this conversation with you – it’s moving, insightful, and necessary.Support the show

After a three-month hiatus, I'm so pleased to be bringing back this podcast with more amazing conversations.This week, I’m joined by Sabrin Hasbun, writer, researcher, and author of the beautiful and moving book Crossing. Born in Italy to a Palestinian father and Italian mother, Sabrin grew up navigating languages, cultures, and identities – experiences that deeply inform her work. Crossing is part memoir, part exploration of belonging, memory, and family history. It moves between past and present, Italy and Palestine, weaving together personal stories with wider questions of identity, exile, and the meaning of home.In our conversation, we talk about her journey into writing, the ways in which her dual heritage has shaped her perspective, and how literature can hold space for histories that risk being silenced. I'm so honoured to share this conversation with you. Support the show

In today’s episode, I’m joined by the brilliant Chitra Nagarajan – a writer, researcher, and activist whose work spans human rights, conflict, migration, and climate justice.Chitra has spent many years working across West Africa, particularly in the Lake Chad Basin region, and brings a deep commitment to centering the voices of those often left unheard. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, openDemocracy, and more, and she is widely respected for her ability to weave together the personal, political, and historical with clarity and compassion.In this episode, we discuss her extraordinary new book, The World Was In Our Hands – Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict, which is a powerful and essential oral history project. Through a chorus of voices – of survivors, fighters, community members, and aid workers – the book paints a deeply human and nuanced portrait of one of the most devastating conflicts of our time. It asks urgent questions about justice, memory, and healing, and it reminds us of the importance of listening deeply to the people most affected by violence.I’m so honoured to share this conversation with you – it’s moving, insightful, and necessary.Support the show

In today’s episode, I’m joined by the extraordinary Juhea Kim to discuss her latest novel, City of Night Birds—a haunting and lyrical exploration of artistry, love, and redemption set against the backdrop of the Russian ballet world.The novel centers on Natalia Leonova, once the most celebrated ballerina of her generation. After a catastrophic accident ends her career, Natalia returns to St. Petersburg in 2019, grappling with addiction and the ghosts of her past. As she navigates the city that shaped her, she confronts memories of her complex relationships: her great love, Alexander, who transformed both her life and art; and Dmitri, a dark and treacherous genius whose actions contributed to her downfall. When Dmitri offers her a chance to return to the stage in her signature role, Natalia must decide whether she can face the people and the world that nearly broke her.In our conversation, Juhea and I explore themes of forgiveness, identity, and the transformative power of art. Juhea shares insights into her research process, her connection to the world of ballet, and how she crafted a narrative that resonates with both intimacy and grandeur. We talk about the moral responsibilities that authors have, literature as a work of art, the world around us and so much more. A bit about Juhea before we begin: she is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Beasts of a Little Land, which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the winner of the Society of American Historians Prize for Historical Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Catapult, Zyzzyva, and The New York Times Modern Love. Born in South Korea and now based in Portland, Oregon, Juhea is also a passionate advocate for animal rights and environmental justice.This is a beautiful and deeply human conversation, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.Support the show

This week, I’m speaking with the brilliant Ibtisam Azem—novelist, journalist, and storyteller—about her powerful and thought-provoking book, The Book of Disappearance.Set across 1948 Palestine, in Jaffa and also Tel Aviv, this novel asks a haunting question: what if all the Palestinians suddenly disappeared? Through the intertwining narratives of Alaa, a young Palestinian man who vanishes without a trace, and Ariel, an Israeli, liberal Zionist journalist who finds Alaa’s diaries, the novel explores themes of memory, identity, and erasure. It is both a deeply personal story and a profound political meditation on history, belonging, and loss.In this conversation, we delve into the layers of metaphor and meaning in The Book of Disappearance, the historical and political realities that shape the narrative, and the ongoing situation in Palestine. We also reflect on storytelling as resistance, the role of literature in preserving memory, and the weight of silence in both personal and collective histories.This is a powerful and necessary discussion, and I hope it sparks reflection and conversation for you as well.--I hope you loved listening to this episode and found things that will stay with you. I’d love to hear from you, so please do reach out on social media and don’t forget to like, subscribe and leave a review as it can really help. If you're feeling extra generous, please consider buying me a "coffee" so I can keep putting great conversations like this out into the world:https://ko-fi.com/readwithsamiaSupport the show

For this week's episode, I have the immense honour of speaking with Elif Shafak — an internationally acclaimed and award-winning author whose work has been translated into more than 55 languages. With 21 published books to her name, including 13 novels, Elif has built a remarkable body of work that spans continents, cultures, and generations. Her writing is rich, lyrical, and deeply political, shaped by her experiences of living in multiple countries, her life in exile, and her unwavering belief in the power of stories to build bridges and foster understanding.In this episode, we talk about her latest novel, There Are Rivers In The Sky, a beautifully layered and timely book that flows across generations and continents, weaving together stories of identity, migration, belonging, and the sacredness of water.We explore the urgent themes at the heart of the novel — climate change, political unrest, and the silencing of voices — and how Elif draws on oral storytelling traditions to give voice to those often unheard. We also speak about the symbolism of water, the language of silence, and how fiction can hold both beauty and protest at once.This is a powerful and reflective conversation that touches on hope, resilience, and the role of the writer in turbulent times. I am beyond honoured to be speaking with Elif for this episode. --I hope you loved listening to this episode and found things that will stay with you. I’d love to hear from you, so please do reach out on social media and don’t forget to like, subscribe and leave a review as it can really help. If you're feeling extra generous, please consider buying me a "coffee" so I can keep putting great conversations like this out into the world:https://ko-fi.com/readwithsamiaSupport the show