Hanan al-Shaykh with Esther Freud - World Literature Weekend

The leading Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh was just seven years old when her mother, Kamila, sought a divorce from her father, who ran a strictly religious household. She read from and discussed her memoir The Locust and The Bird: My Mother’s Story with Esther Freud, the author of Hideous Kinky and The Sea House, as part of the London Review Bookshop’s World Literature Weekend.Launching the Bookshop's inaugural World Literature Weekend, Hanan al-Shaykh gave a lively reading from her memoir of her mother, The Locust and the Bird, as well as discussing the book with novelist Esther Freud.