Of course we couldn’t meet the team without meeting the Festival Director, Ahlam Bolooki. We had to know what her book habits and opinions are on her favourite book and which characters she loves.
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh but not all of your laughter, and weep but not all of your tears.
QUICK FIRE ROUND
Written by Ahlam Bolooki
Ahlam discovered her love for books when she was 18 years old though she grew up with her mother taking her to the Sharjah Book Fair each year and was always encouraged to read. The book that transformed Ahlam into a reader was Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera which eventually encouraged Ahlam to read non-fiction struggles of women. Later, she discovered poetry leading her to attend workshops at New York City’s Gotham Writer’s Center, where she studied poetry for several months but also experimented with memoirs, fiction, scripts, you name it! Ahlam finds it difficult to choose a favourite genre as it’s always ever changing and she’s still in the midst of discovering her literary self. She’s catching up on all the gems she missed as a child such as ‘The Little Prince’ and ‘The Giving Tree’, but has also developed a new appetite for Crime Fiction so who knows what’s next?