Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Ahlam Bisharat (born in 1975 in Tammun) is a Palestinian writer and poet, born in the village of Tammun in the Jordan Valley, and a trainer specializing in the field of creative writing. She is the author of short stories, picture books, novels, and memoirs. Ahlam Bisharat is considered one of the most prominent names producing youth literature and short stories in Palestine. She has four novels for adolescents, dozens of children's stories, and two collections of stories. Bisharat gained great attention after publishing the novel “My Nickname is a Butterfly,” a novel addressed to young people that reached the list of the world’s 100 most important books for young people in 2012. The novel was reprinted in both Arabic and English. Bisharat’s career in professional writing began in 2005, bearing in mind that she has enjoyed this talent since the primary stage in her school. She used to compose stories and draw a visual narration for them parallel to the text. She acquired both skills at a young age.
Certificates and positions
She completed her high school studies and then joined the Faculty of Arts at An-Najah National University, where she obtained a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Arabic literature from the same university. She worked as a teacher for twelve years, then she was promoted to become Director of the Children’s Literature Department at the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.
Origin and beginning
Ahlam Bisharat was born and grew up in a family working in the cultivation of the land. She dreamed of becoming a fashion designer, painter, or farmer, but she became a writer, and this was not easy. She is still tormented and enjoys words and weather conditions, such as fields, hills and small valleys. Bisharat spent her childhood among The villages of Al-Jiftlik and Tammun. Her family lived in Tammun, while her school and the family farm were in Al-Jiftlik. This daily trip drew the imaginations of the child Ahlam, who lived her school life in parallel with her active role in agricultural life with the family of ten members. She translated her imagination into writings and drawings in expression classes in the sixth grade. Her first attempt was to write a story coinciding with the beginning of the first Intifada and reflecting the girl's ideas about the events in her surroundings. She began her career writing for young people, alongside writing stories and poetry, since “My Name is the Movement Butterfly” (2009), passing through “Trees for Absent People” (2013) and “Ginger” (2017) until “The Memories Factory” (2019 - Dar Al Salwa), Ahlam establishes a writing that stems from Palestine, from its questions and its reality, to reach, by asking it sometimes, a different picture of reality in order to embrace it again.
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Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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