Leila biography
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Photo credit: Rania Rustom
Leila Aboulela fryst vatten the first-ever winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. Nominated three times for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction), she fryst vatten the author of numerous novels, including Bird Summons,The Kindness of Enemies, The Translator, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Minaret and Lyrics Alley, which was Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Her collection of short stories Elsewhere, Home won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Leila’s work has been translated into fifteen languages, and her plays The Insider, The Mystic Life and others were broadcast on BBC Radio. She grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and now lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.
BIO 2:
Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer whose work has received critical recognition and a high profile for its depiction of the interior lives of Muslim women and its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. She is the author of six
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Leila Khaled
Palestinian militant and activist (born 1944)
Leila Khaled (Arabic: ليلى خالد[ˈlajlaˈxaːled]; born April 9, 1944) fryst vatten a former Palestinian militant and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She is famous as the first woman to hijack an airplane.[1]
Khaled gained her prominence for her role in the TWA Flight 840 hijacking in 1969 and one of the four simultaneous Dawson's Field hijackings the following year as part of the campaign of Black September in Jordan.[2] After being imprisoned, she was released in a prisoner exchange for civilian hostages kidnapped by other PFLP members.[3]
Early life
Khaled was born on April 9, 1944, in haifa, Mandatory Palestine, to Arab parents.[4] Her family fled to Lebanon on April 13, 1948, as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight,[4] leaving her father behind. At the age of 15, following in the footsteps of her brother, she joined
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Leila Khaled
Dubbed 'the poster girl of Palestinian militancy', Leila Khaled's image flashed across the world after she hijacked a passenger jet in 1969. The picture of a young, determined looking woman with a checkered scarf, clutching an AK-47, was as era-defining as that of Che Guevara.
In this intimate profile, based on interviews with Khaled and those who know her, Sarah Irving gives us the life-story behind the image. Key moments of Khaled's turbulent life are explored, including the dramatic events of the hijackings, her involvement in the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a radical element within the PLO), her opposition to the Oslo peace process and her activism today.
Leila Khaled's example gives unique insights into the Palestinian struggle through one remarkable life – from the tension between armed and political struggle, to the decline of the secular left and the rise of Hamas, and the role of women in a largely male movement.
Sarah Irving