Collection: Sonia Nimr

Sonia Nimr is considered one of the most important children's writers in the Arab world. She was born in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in 1955. As a child, folklore, proverbs, the stories of Victor Hugo and Naguib Mahfouz, and tales of her own making mixed with lived experience, forming Nimr's sensibility. During Nimr's undergraduate studies at Birzeit University in Ramallah, she was arrested and sentenced to three years in an Israeli prison for political reasons. It was in prison that she began writing. She went on to earn a PhD in Palestinian history at the University of Exeter in England. Nimr's first two picture books Al Tanboury's Shoes and The Clever Swallow were inspired by Palestinian folk tales, and published in 1996. She returned to Palestine, after working with the Museum of Mankind and the British Museum, in 1999. Over the years, Nimr has published 21 books for children and young adults, winning major awards for her work, including the Etisalat Prize for Arabic Children's Literature, and multiple nominations for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Since 2006, Nimr has also worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at Birzeit University.