Hello!
Onjali here.
Welcome to my
Worlds...
ONJALI Q. RAÚF
AUTHOR & ACTIVIST
My Book Worlds ...
Newest Release
The Girl at the Front
of the Class
Celebrating the sixth anniversary of
The Boy at the Front of the Class, comes
The Girl at the Front of the Class!
My first every picture book delving into the ongoing crisis of inhumanity facing so many refugees, and written especially for children aged 3-5 years old.
Come and meet Layla and Adam: two little children with a big tale to tell...
Illustrated by Pippa Curnick.
Now available in all good bookstores.
Contributions ...
My Stage World ...
2023 Tour NOW COMPLETE
The Hero Next Door:
A Play
Meet Musa, a refugee boy from Eritrea and a Liverpool fan; Hayley, an autistic young super-dancer who adores frogs; and bully Melody who is way too cool to hang out with anyone except her best friends. Oh! And her granddad Harry!
Can this unlikely trio come together to save Harry from a dastardly thief?
Only time (and some frogs!) will tell ...
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Footsteps on the Wind:
An Animation ...
What do you get when award-winning writer Sita Brahmachari, and a director with a vision called Maya Sanbar, approach you to co-storyboard an animation for a song by Sting, written to honour child refugees?
A globally acclaimed, UNHCR backed animation, hitting schools and film festivals worldwide...
CHILDREN'S
There's nothing I love better than a brilliant story - which just happens to be based on a true one. Follow the story of shero Sophia Duleep-Singh, Indian princess, Goddaughter to Queen Victoria, and revolutionary suffragette as she takes on the government (and racism) to help secure women's rights to vote.
Grab your marching boots for this one: Sufiya Ahmed's loyal account of Sophia's life will leave you wanting to get right up and take to the streets!
There are more things injured than a little nightjar in Katya Balen's beautifully written story, published by Barrington Stokes (which makes the text dyslexia-friendly).
A clash of wills and hurts bubbles to the surface as Noah and his father, who is visiting from the USA, lock horns over how to treat the hurt bird they have encountered. Do they let nature take its course, or step in to help? A perfect, gentle, and fiery read, that has you hooked from the first word to the very last.
ADULTS
I hardly have enough words to convey the sheer genius of this literary endeavour!
Honing in on the incessant noises, opinions and white noise of online worlds, a movement triggered by the self-silencing of one woman changes the game forever.
Quite simply a brilliant story, beautifully crafted, and built around a literary world that feels too real for comfort. Sexism, racism, envy, ego... Everything dissected and held up for viewing by the brilliance of Ayisha Malik.
A beautiful collection of short stories, made even more poignant by the fact their writer's life - and pen - was cut short after her capture and death in Auschwitz in 1942.
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From a woman walking into a bar...and meeting another forced to look to paying men for security. To the arrogance of a daughter, who has no idea of the previous lives of her mother, this collection of deeply stunning stories centering on women's lives, is a golden gem for anyone wanting to take a break from the world, but with only 20 minutes to spare. Published by one of my favourite publishing houses, Persephone Books, which brings forgotten authors works back to life.
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