Salma Hussain grew up in the U.A.E. and immigrated to Canada at the age of thirteen. She earned an honours BA in English from the University of Calgary where she also completed a law degree. Subsequently she earned a Master’s in Law from McGill University. Hussain now lives in Toronto. She is a graduate of the Humber Summer Writing Workshop.
Fiction (Juvenile)
The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan
Toronto: Tundra Books, 2022.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Mona Hasan is a young Muslim girl growing up in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, when the first Gulf War breaks out in 1991. The war isn’t what she expects — “We didn’t even get any days off school! Just my luck” — especially when the ground offensive is over so quickly and her family peels the masking tape off their windows. Her parents, however, fear there is no peace in the region, and it sparks a major change in their lives.
Over the course of one year, Mona falls in love, speaks up to protect her younger sister, loses her best friend to the new girl at school, has summer adventures with her cousins in Pakistan, immigrates to Canada, and pursues her ambition to be a feminist and a poet.
Awards and Honours
2023 Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People (Finalist)
Links
Salma Hussain twitter site
Publisher Tundra Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers