Episode 06: Sahar Mustafah
Sahar Mustafah discusses her debut and award-winning novel The Beauty of Your Face. Mustafa goes into detail about the writing of her book, which includes employing an episodic narrativestructure and dramatizing the horror of a school shooting at an Islamic school for girls located in the Chicago suburbs. She talks about the representation of Arab American and Muslim American women in her fiction, and how her representations challenge the publishing industry’s stereotypes of such women.
About Sahar Mustafah:
The daughter of immigrants, Sahar Mustafah explores her Palestinian heritage in her writing. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Columbia College where she was a Follett Graduate Scholar. Sahar is a Willow Books Grand Prize Winner for her short story collection Code of The West, was named one of the 25 Writers to Watch by The Guild Literary Complex of Chicago, and is a member of Voices Protest and Radius of Arab American Writers.
Her new novel, The Beauty of Your Face (W.W. Norton, 2020) was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review, a Los Angeles Times United We Read selection, one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women, and a Great Group Reads for National Reading Group Month. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for Chicago Writers Association Best Book of the Year award and the Chicago Review of Books award.
Her stories have earned a Distinguished Story citation from Best American Short Stories 2016, First Place in Fiction from the Guild Literary Complex of Chicago, and three Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Mustafah earned her MFA from Columbia College Chicago where she was the recipient of the David Friedman Award for Best Fiction. She writes and teaches outside of Chicago.
