In line with our mission of promoting reading in the Muslim community, we are pleased to announce the Umm Zakiyyah South Africa tour this October. Umm Zakiyyah is an acclaimed novelist, motivational speaker and community activist from the USA. She has written 15 novels and is the bestselling American Muslim author of If I Should Speak trilogy, Muslim Girl, and Let’s Talk About Sex and Muslim Love as well as internationally acclaimed blogs and stories at uzauthor.com.
She writes about the interfaith struggles of Muslims and Christians and the intercultural, spiritual, and moral struggles of Muslims in America. Her work has earned praise from writers, professors and filmmakers and has been translated into multiple languages. Her first novel If I Should Speak has been used for multicultural studies in schools and universities in America and abroad, including Indiana University, Bloomington; Howard University; University of D.C; and Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was further featured at Georgetown University and in the publication Multicultural Perspectives through Saint Cloud State University and University of Saint Thomas affiliation.
Umm Zakiyyah holds a BA in elementary education and an MA in English language learning and is CELTA certified. She is an educator with more than twenty years of experience teaching English, writing, and public speaking in the United States and Saudi Arabia. She has worked as a curriculum developer, a guidance counselor, a youth mentor, and a teacher trainer for Macmillan Education. Her volunteer work includes working as a resident advisor in a domestic violence shelter and advising youth and women in spiritual crisis.
She studied Islamic sciences, Qur’an, and Arabic in the USA, Egypt and Saudi Arabia for more than fifteen years. She currently teaches tajweed (rules of reciting Qur’an) in Baltimore, Maryland. She is also an inspirational speaker at Muslim conferences and youth events.
We have invited her to tour SA to promote her novels and reading and writing at large. Her latest novel, His Other Wife, is now a short film and will be screened at the events in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
She will conduct workshops for Muslim teachers on the power of fiction and motivating children to read. She will also conduct workshops for Muslim novelists, bloggers and budding authors.
She will be accompanied by Khalil Ismail, a nasheed artist, who will perform at the events along with guest appearances of Zain and Rashid Bhikha and other local artists insha Allah.
