Syima Aslam

Syima Aslam MBE Hon. FRSL is Director and Founder of the Bradford Literature Festival.

Syima Aslam

MBE Hon. FRSL
Born
Halifax, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationLiterature Festival Director
Known forFellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Biography

Syima Aslam was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, but moved to Bradford while a schoolgirl.[1]

In 2012, The Guardian published an op-ed by Aslam, where she describes all the factors a modern Muslim woman has to consider when she decides whether or not to wear a hijab.[2]

In 2014, Aslam and her friend Irna Qureshi founded the Bradford Literature Festival.[1][3][4]

In 2019, the BBC News asked Aslam to sit on a six person panel to recommend the 100 "most inspiring" novels.[5][6][7]

Awards and honours

Aslam was elected as an honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019.[8]

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to literature.[9]

References
  1. Claire Armitstead (26 June 2017). "Brontes, Bradford and Buddhist poetry - meet the women transforming the literary festival". The Guardian. p. 12. ISSN 0261-3077.
  2. Syima Aslam (10 December 2012). "To hijab or not to hijab- A Muslim Businesswoman's View". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  3. Claire Wilde (6 February 2015). "Bradford wins extra Arts Council funding". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  4. Molly Flatt (30 July 2018). "5 things inspiring Bradford Literature Festival's Syima Aslam right now". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on 10 November 2019.
  5. "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 5 November 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019. The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
  6. Alison Flood (5 November 2019). "Discworld dishes Moby-Dick: BBC unveils 100 'novels that shaped our world'". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 November 2019. There's no Wuthering Heights, no Moby-Dick, no Ulysses, but there is Half of a Yellow Sun, Bridget Jones's Diary and Discworld: so announced the panel of experts assembled by the BBC to draw up a list of 100 novels that shaped their world.
  7. "Margaret Atwood, L.M. Montgomery, Carol Shields featured on BBC's list of 100 novels that shaped the world". CBC News. 8 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019. Five Canadian books are on the list: Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, Unless by Carol Shields, Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and American War by Omar El Akkad.
  8. "RSL Fellows: Syima Aslam". Royal Society of Literature.
  9. "No. 63571". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 2022. p. N16.


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