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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

On this week’s show, I’m speaking to Palestinian-American writer, Sahar Mustafah about identity, writing, survivor’s guilt, and the current war on Gaza which has led to the killing of over 14,000 Palestinian men, women and children. Her book, The Beauty of Your Face is a stunning family tale of a young woman finding herself and her faith, as she explores her own identity.  The daughter of immigrants, Sahar Mustafah explores her Palestinian heritage in her writing. She earned her MFA in...

On this week's show, I'm speaking to Dina Nayeri about the truth. In a growing age of false news, propoganda, smear campaigns and cancel culture, the sanctity of the truth and who gets believed is increasingly important. There is a difference between those who speak the truth, and those whose truth is believed, as sometimes it is the case that those who speak their truth are not believed, and the consequences are dire. We have seen this play out worldwide for centuries for women, refugees,...

This week on the show, I’m joined by two book-lovers, book bloggers and activists to talk about some really important issues: Ola Abou and Ilham Essalih.  We're talking about what books we should read to further understand the war on Gaza, and the war in Syria, and how the movements for liberation in Palestine and Syria are intertwined.  At the time of recording (16th October), we were on day 9 of Israel’s war against Gaza, with the official death toll having reached nearly 3,000, 700 of whom...

On today’s show, I’m speaking with powerful story-teller and writer, Etaf Rum. Etaf has written two 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. Her work has connected with readers all over the world, evoking deep emotion, and shedding light on the traumas held and...

On today’s show, I’m speaking with journalist and historian, Lucy Fulford about her non-fiction book, The Exiled.  In The Exiled, Lucy delves into understanding the Asian expulsion from Uganda in 1972, which saw 80,000 South Asian Ugandans being given just 90 days to leave the country, by the dictator, Idi Amin. She goes way back, uncovering how the British empire led to so many South Asians finding home in Uganda, but how it also impacted the structure of Ugandan society and the impact on...

On this week's show, I’m speaking with Kevin Jared Hosein about his novel, Hungry Ghosts. Hungry Ghosts is a remarkable novel set in the 1940s in Trinidad, following the story of two families, vastly different from one another, but whose decisions and actions have devastating consequences. In his book, Kevin explores so much, from race, class, religion, wealth and human dignity, to huge questions around one’s pursuit of escaping the life they don’t want to lead; whether we are the saviours in...

On the show this week, I spoke with the super creative and wonderful, Laila Woozeer about her memoir, Not Quite White. Born to a Mauritian father and white mother, Laila often felt like she didn't belong and struggled to see herself represented in the world at large. In her memoir, she details the complexity of mixed racial identities, how difficult it can often be to navigate all the ways we are often othered, and the importance of learning to accept ourselves and all the different parts of...

On today’s show, I’m speaking with Jaspreet Kaur, a woman I really look up to. We talk all about being a brown girl, and the challeges we face, journeys we go on, and all the beauty that lies within it all. Jaspreet’s book takes an inter-generational look at what it really means to be a brown woman, and what issues we really need to talk more about. On this episode, we talk about microaggressions and how harmful they are, the importance of our names and saying them correctly, body image...

This week's episode is a little different. Usually I interview a super-inspiring author, and we dig deep into the themes and issues they explore in their writing. But this week, there is no guest, and it's just me. I wanted to take some time to reflect on the past year, and all the wonderful conversations that have taken place on the show. The Diverse Bookshelf podcast is now one year old :) With over 40 episodes out in the world, I wanted to sit back and think about the space we've created,...

On this week's episode, I chat to the wonderful Faiza Shaheen, author of Know Your Place, which is part-memoir, and part-research-based analysis about class in the UK. In the book, Faiza discusses her own working-class background, and the effects of austerity on her family, especially her mother who was relying on benefits due to her health. She breaks down the very many things in society which helped her to graduate from the University of Oxford, including a state-school system with good...

For the first time on the show, I'm welcoming back an author I interviewed last year - Christy Lefteri! I am a huge fan of Christy's work, so could not be more thrilled. Christy writes about important social, political and global issues including the refugee crisis, the war in Syria, domestic labour, family, loss, identity and belonging. With her new novel,  The Book of Fire, she explores the effects of climate change, human greed, and what  could happen to the world if thing carry on going...

On this week's episode, I spoke to the super stylish, absolutely wonderful, and very insightful, Hafsa Lodi about her book, Modesty: A Fashion Paradox. Now, I know absolutely nothing about fashion, or what it means to be fashionable.  I'm typically seen wearing clashing colours, outfits just thrown together and odd socks. :) However, I am really intrigued by the way the modest fashion industry around the world, and especially in the UK, has grown over the last 10 years. I'm particularly...

TW: sexual assault, domestic violence and grief. Have you ever read a book where you feel immense rage towards a character? So much so, you're beyond glad that this is a piece of fiction. Well, that was my experience of reading The Middle Child by Chika Unigwe. In The Middle Child, we meet Nani, who after some devastating loss, ends up trapped in an abusive marriage. On this episode, I spoke to Chika Unigwe about what stories she wanted to explore, rage at characters, systems of oppression,...

For this week's episode, I spoke to the super intelligent, and absolutely wonderful, Parini Shroff. Parini Shroff is author of the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction long-listed novel, The Bandit Queens - a book which The New York Times has called “a radically feel-good story about the murder of no-good husbands by a cast of unsinkable women.” I loved The Bandit Queens, which is full of dark humour and wit, unforgettable characters, a fast plot and it tackles so many important themes and issues...

On this week's podcast episode, I spoke to the hilarious Huda Fahmy, illustrator and writer. In this laughter-packed episode, we talked about why humour is so important, the universality of everyday life experiences, family, creating characters, creativity and so much more. Huda's latest book in her Huda F series, Huda F Cares is coming out in October 2023, so get pre-ordering from a bookshop you love! Huda Fahmy grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, and has loved comics since she was a kid. She...

On this week's show I spoke to the lovely and hugely talented Hiba, who is also a dear friend of mine. On 6th July, Hiba's first children's novel, Safiyyah's War, hit bookshelves in the UK, and in this episode we talk about the beautiful book.  Hiba's book is about a part of history that we know so little about - the resistance movement against the Holocaust that was run from the Grand Mosque of Paris. In the book, our protagonist, 11-year-old Safiyyah ends up in the middle of the movement,...

On the show this week, I spoke to the lovely Sara Nisha Adams about her two books, The Reading List and The Twilight Garden. This was such a wholesome, uplifting conversation where we talked about the importance of uplifting stories, hope, grief, community, libraries, gardening and so much more. We talked about our names, and the thought, experience and conscious choices that go into choosing names for ourselves, and those we love. Sometimes, the news and social media is flooded with...

What happens when two people are deeply in love, but they want different things for their future? Can a relationship, or a marriage, work its way around fundamental things like having kids, career goals and what family should look like? Is love enough, and do we really listen when women tell us what they want from life? This week, I spoke to Krystle Zara Appiah about her debut novel, Rootless. In Rootless, we’re presented with Efe and Sam, two people massively in love who get married to build...