Amal Allana's Books

Ebrahim Alkazi

Holding Time Captive

By: Amal Allana

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Amal Allana’s compelling biography of her father is the first carefully researched, full-length account of the life, work and times of Ebrahim Alkazi, one of the giants of twentieth-century theatre and a key promoter of the visual arts movement in India. Evoking the excitement of Alkazi’s student years in England, the controversies that surrounded his provocative ideas to transform the theatre movement in Bombay and later in Delhi, as the director of the National School of Drama (NSD), this book charts Alkazi’s meteoric rise to the top, with his modernist staging of plays and his aim of putting Hindi theatre on the map. It was at the Sangeet Natak Akademi that Alkazi first confronted resistance to his ideas on the role of tradition in the making of a new ‘national’ culture. By the 1970s, disillusioned with the curtailing of civil liberties and a dysfunctional bureaucracy, he ultimately resigned from the NSD, developing his own independent institutions for the promotion of the visual arts in India as well as abroad. Staging the cultural history of India between the 1940s and 2000s, and featuring a galaxy of artists and actors as the dramatis personae—including M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, Akbar Padamsee, Gieve Patel, Nissim Ezekiel, Alyque Padamsee, Girish Karnad, Manohar Singh, Vijaya Mehta, Kusum Haidar and Gerson da Cunha—Allana’s chronicle is charged with their fierce energy and commitment as contributors to a vibrant new India. The author’s personal perspective as Alkazi’s daughter brings to the narrative an added dimension of veracity and sensitivity. With objective candour, Allana shares details of her parents’ relationship as they examine their marriage on entirely new terms, as a partnership of equals. Holding Time Captive shows a dynamic Alkazi in his quest to bring about an inclusive, international, intercultural and interdisciplinary thinking in artistic expressions that is transformative and liberating. This book offers unique glimpses into an enigmatic personality whose emotionally charged life closely reflected and ran parallel to the growth and evolution of his startlingly fresh ideas and vision for a modern cultural movement in India.

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836

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Penguin Random House India Private Limited

Published Date

ISBN 10

9357085246

ISBN 13

9789357085243

Ebrahim Alkazi

Holding Time Captive

By: Amal Allana

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Ebrahim Alkazi

Holding Time Captive

By: Amal Allana

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836

Publisher

Penguin Random House India Private Limited

Published Date

ISBN 10

9357085246

ISBN 13

9789357085243

Hope is a Woman's Name

By: Amal Elsana Alh'jooj

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Hope is a Woman's Name

By: Amal Elsana Alh'jooj

The fifth daughter in a patriarchal society, and an indigenous Bedouin in Israel, Amal came into this world fighting for her voice to be heard in a community that did not prize girls. At birth it was only her father who looked at her and said "I see hope in her face. I want to call her Amal [hope] in the hope that Allah will give us boys after her." Five brothers were indeed to follow.Hope is a Woman's Name is a rare look at Bedouin life from the even rarer perspective of a Bedouin girl. Amal challenged authority from birth, slowly learning where her community's boundaries lay and how to navigate them.As a shepherd at the age of 6, Amal led her flock of sheep across the green mountains of Laqiya, her village in the Negev in southern Israel. Given such responsibility, though rarely recognition, Amal came to understand her community and forge her skills as a leader. Aged 13 and frustrated by the constraints put on her education as a girl, Amal set up literacy classes for the adult women in her village. She aimed to teach them not only how to read, but to value education itself: "I wanted them to taste an education so that they would never again deprive their daughters of one." This was the beginning of a lifelong career initiating projects that would help create change for the Bedouin – a minority within Israel's Palestinian minority – and for their women in particular. She established economic empowerment programmes for marginalized women, helped found an Arab-Jewish school, and created organizations to promote shared society. At every turn she had to face the challenges of tradition – as well as the prejudices of Israeli society – to create new possibilities that would allow women to empower themselves.Amal has learnt to embrace every aspect of her complicated identity – Bedouin, Arab, woman, Palestinian and Israeli citizen – to help create social change, build bridges with other communities and inspire hope. Hope is a Woman's Name is an intimate portrayal of a little-known culture and its strengths, values, morals and boundaries. It is a rare and moving story.

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595

Publisher

Halban Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1912600129

ISBN 13

9781912600120

Beyond Veiled Clichés

The Real Lives of Arab Women

By: Amal Awad

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Beyond Veiled Clichés

The Real Lives of Arab Women

By: Amal Awad

Magnificent. Surprising. Illuminating. Australia needs this book. NIKKI GEMMELL As someone who has a foot in both the Western and Arabic worlds, Amal set out to explore the lives of Arab women, in Australia and the Middle East, travelling to the region and interviewing more than sixty women about feminism, intimacy, love, sex and shame, trauma, war, religion and culture. Beyond Veiled Clichés explores the similarities and differences experienced by these women in their daily lives – work, relationships, home and family life, friendships, the communities they live in, and more. Arab-Australian women are at the intersection – between Western ideals and Arab tradition. It can get messy, but there is also great beauty in the layers. In a time of racial tension and rising global fear around terrorism, there is a renewed fear of 'the other'. At its heart this fascinating book normalises people and their experiences. The breadth, variety and beauty of what Amal has discovered will enthral and surprise you.

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283

Publisher

Random House Australia

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143782622

ISBN 13

9780143782629

The Incidental Muslim

Undiluted Perspectives on Life, Love and Pop Culture

By: Amal Awad

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The Incidental Muslim

Undiluted Perspectives on Life, Love and Pop Culture

By: Amal Awad

The Incidental Muslim is an honest, witty and heartfelt collection of columns and new musings by writer Amal Awad. Growing up in Australia as a hybrid identity (Arab-Australian-Muslim), Amal has unique insights on career, life, love and feminism.A passionate moviegoer and TV buff, she also considers her love of storytelling and how Hollywood just can't get their portrayals of Muslims right. More specifically, she bemoans the lack of the incidental Muslim - the character who just happens to be a Muslim, rather than the usual three Cs: cab drivers, convenience store owners or crackpots. Excerpt from The Incidental Muslim"Like any teenager, I had modest career aspirations. In my case, I would take singing lessons in order to develop my singing voice, before proceeding on to an illustrious career in musical theatre. My 'Everest' was to play Christine in Phantom of the Opera, though being thereasonable character that I am, Maria in West Side Story would have kept me equally satisfied. The only real, and I suppose rather significant, dent in the plan was that I was growing up Muslim." Praise for The Incidental Muslim"Despite what the title may suggest, The Incidental Muslim is a privileged insight into the life of, yes - a Muslim woman. Snapshots of the author's life, from childhood to student and now a writer, endear us to a world that turns out to be unmistakably familiar. Such is the uniquenessof Amal Awad's voice: it actually represents the women of today, whether they are Muslim or not." - Liana Rosnita, editor, Aquila Style About the AuthorAmal Awad is a writer, author and journalist. An Arab-Muslim Australian, Amal frequentlywrites and speaks about issues of society, religion and popular culture. She has addressedfestivals, universities, youth groups and community organisations, and has appeared onnational radio, including RN Life Matters and The Drawing Room with Waleed Aly and NikkiGemmell. Amal is a columnist for popular Muslim women's website Aquila Style, and a regularcontributor to Australian websites Daily Life, ABC Religion and Ethics, and The Vine. Her writinghas also been published in Frankie magazine and The Sydney Morning Herald. Amal publishedher debut novel Courting Samira - a tale of Muslim courtship and coming of age in the modernera - in 2010, and was selected as a quarter- finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. More recently she contributed to the anthology Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim inAustralia (Allen & Unwin, 2014), and is currently working on various projects, including hersecond novel, This Is How You Get Better.

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Page Count

212

Published Date

ISBN 10

0992422701

ISBN 13

9780992422707

Book's by Amal Allana

Ebrahim Alkazi

Ebrahim Alkazi

Ebrahim Alkazi

Ebrahim Alkazi

Hope is a Woman's Name

Hope is a Woman's Name

Beyond Veiled Clichés

Beyond Veiled Clichés

The Incidental Muslim

The Incidental Muslim

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