The popular children’s book series, Curious George, has just announced a new storybook called It’s Ramadan, Curious George. The cheeky little monkey, with whom children around the world have grown up, will be introduced to the Muslim month of fasting.
The Muslim-American author Hena Khan was asked to pen the story, and she says that she hopes the book will forge interfaith understanding.
It follows hot on the heels of American publishers Simon & Schuster announcing a new imprint called Salaam Reads targeted at younger Muslim readers, which aims for a “more nuanced, more honest portrayal of Muslim lives”.
This is a great start, but we need more of these to balance the many publications about Muslims that focus on escaping from Islam or redemption from radicalisation.
It’s timely too. Young Muslims in the West are crying out to see themselves reflected in mainstream stories.
This lack of diversity in stories is no surprise because the publishing industry is well known for having a lack of diversity in its structure.
In particular, with the increasingly hostile political and social climate about Muslims and their place in society, addressing the lack of representation of Muslim stories could have profoundly beneficial effects. Study after study shows that reading improves empathy and understanding of those around us.
Sheikha Bodour, who chairs the Emirates Publishers Association, asked earlier this week: “Are we reading stories about others to define ourselves or are we interpreting others’ political, social and cultural events and making them ours? What about our voices?”
If only one perspective is constantly portrayed, that becomes the default way of seeing the world and everything else becomes delegitimised.
This is most obvious when we consider the stories of women told by women both past and present.
Men’s stories and writings are considered to be the literary canon: women’s writings as only relevant to women readers and concerned with the trivialities of the personal and domestic.
The same challenge applies to writers of minority backgrounds. From a global perspective in the English language, this means non-white, non-western, non-male.
Without these stories being told, histories and perspectives will disappear forever. Our global discourse will be flat, white and lacking in the kind of multifaceted nuance required to live in a multicultural, multipolar world.
It’s no good moaning about the lack of these stories. Instead, if your story is not being told, it’s up to you to tell it. Pen or keyboard, manuscript or blog, fiction or non-fiction.
Today the gatekeepers do still hold power, but much less than they used to. If you can build your own following online, they will publish. If you can create the right credentials for yourself, they will make space for you. And if you know your story must be told, and will be read, you can set up your own publishing house or self-publish.
More than ever before, the world wants more diverse stories. It needs them.
This week, today, now, pick up your pen, switch on your computer and start writing.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www. spirit21.co.uk
