Randa Abdel-Fattah

The hijab, or sikh turban, or Jewish skullcap are all explicit symbols, but they do not represent a threat or affront to others, and have no bearing on the competence, skills and intelligence of a person.

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

I wasn't rebellious. Other friends had far stricter parents and where there wasn't a relationship of respect and communication, they were usually the opposite; kids go to the other extreme.

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

The world of adolescence was all I was interested in exploring, I suppose because there is no other period in your life when you feel as intensely. Love, hate, jealousy, loyalty: I remember the power of these emotions as a teenager and how navigating questions of identity at the same time was truly terrifying and exhilarating. Writing in that moment of a person’s life has always felt so right to me.

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

Distance in time has made my voice less contrived and subjective. I don’t feel I’m writing some kind of diary (which I kind of felt I was doing when I was 16). I am far more conscious of my voice and more disciplined in separating myself from my characters…

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

The relationship between reader and writer in fiction is steeped in vulnerabilities. It really does require trust and faith because some books have the power to transform people. You feel like you can never go back, look at the world in the same way again. And that grand ambition is what I hope to do with my books because at the heart of my writing is a passion for telling stories of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the misunderstood.

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

In a multicultural, diverse society there are countless ways in which people negotiate the everyday lived experience and reality of diversity.

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

In a multicultural, diverse society there are countless ways in which people negotiate the everyday lived experience and reality of diversity.

— Randa Abdel-Fattah