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Anbara Salam is a British author of historical fiction. She wrote the novels Things Bright and Beautiful (2018), Belladonna (2020), and Hazardous Spirits (2023).
Anbara Salam | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | |
| Years active | 2017–present |
| Partner | Struan Murray |
| Children | 1 |
| Family | Anbara Salam Khalidi (great-grandmother) |
| Website | www |
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Salam grew up in London with her younger siblings.[1] Her Palestinian-Lebanese Muslim father and Scottish Presbyterian mother met in England in the 1980s as an international student and working-class librarian respectively.[2] Salam's great-grandmother and namesake was Lebanese feminist Anbara Salam Khalidi. Salam attended a day school in London.[3] She was commended as a Foyle Young Poet in 2001 and a top 15 winner in 2002. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English and History from the University of York[4] and later pursued a PhD in Theology at St Antony's College, Oxford.[5][6]
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In 2017, it was announced Fig Tree (a Penguin Books imprint) had won a three-way auction to publish Salam's debut novel Things Bright and Beautiful in April 2018.[7] The novel, centred around a married missionary couple in the New Hebrides,[8] was inspired by her own experience living in Vanuatu for sixth months. At the time, outside of writing, Salam worked for an NGO that provided refugee students with postgraduate scholarships.[5]
Fig Tree would go on to publish Salam's second novel Belladonna: Our Italian Year, which took two years to write and edit,[1] in 2020. Set in the 1950s, the novel follows Bridget and Isabella, a pair of American Catholic school friends from Connecticut who win scholarships to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Pentila in northern Italy.[9] Belladonna appeared on The New Arab's list of best books by Arab authors that year.[10]
In 2022, Salam moved to Baskerville (an imprint of Hachette UK) for a two-book deal.[11] She had begun writing her third novel, a paranormal occult mystery set in 1920s Edinburgh, during the COVID-19 lockdown. The novel, titled Hazardous Spirits, was released in October 2023.[12]
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Salam lives in Oxford with her partner Struan Murray, also a writer, and their child (born 2021).[13] She is queer and used her novel Belladonna to come out to her parents, an experience she wrote about in the essay "Unheld Conversations".[14]
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Novels
- Things Bright and Beautiful (2018)
- Belladonna: Our Italian Year (2020)
- Hazardous Spirits (2023)
Short stories and essays
- "Downtown Beirut", essay in Five Dials N. 45: Europe in Pieces (2018)
- "Circus Freak", short story in The Circus (2019) for the Berlin Writing Prize (Runner-up)[15]
- "Unheld Conversations", essay in This Arab is Queer (2022), edited by Elias Jahshan
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