Dubai: For Fatima Sharafeddine, an award-winning author of books for children and young adults, this genre is no child’s play. Talent is necessary but it is not the only thing to become a successful author of books for young minds. “There are many challenges that a writer faces. Being disciplined and writing on a daily basis is a big challenge, but I have to stick to it no matter what. Talent is necessary, but not sufficient. A successful writer is one who is a hard worker,” said Sharafeddine, who has authored 110 books, which have been translated into more than 14 languages.
An author for the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2017, taking place in March, she attends several book fairs during the year and also participates in a variety of conferences and author tours in Arab countries and in Europe. “Writing is an avenue to express my thoughts as well as my deepest feelings [of pain, joy, anxiety, fear, love etc]. It also permits me to put my imagination into words, and words into stories for children,” she told Gulf News.
The themes she pursues vary, depending on the issue on her mind at the time of writing.
“It could be a rhyming book of a funny story, but it could also be a story about bullying, empowering girls, facing difficulties and overcoming them, accepting the other etc.” She was first published in 2004 and has since become a full-time writer in the ‘Children and Young Adult’ genre.
She offers creative writing workshops to aspiring authors interested in writing for children and currently lives in Brussels and Beirut.
Being a children’s books’ author comes with its peculiar set of challenges, she said. “I need to be always up to date with the issues that matter to the children and teens I am writing for. To be able to do so, I have to be in contact with them to understand them as well as to get their feedback on my stories. The big challenge is to find the balance between my own needs of expression and the current needs of my readers.”
In the Arab world, when compared to the West, children’s literature appears to be comparatively less popular. However, Sharafeddine pointed out that Arabic children’s literature has “taken a big leap forward in the past decade”.
“We have now tens of publishing houses that are specialised in children’s literature in the various Arab countries. We also have more and more high-quality texts, illustrations, and production. Literary conferences, workshops and awards that are dedicated to children’s literature are factors that have played a major role in the development of the field,” said Sharafeddine.
