Are You Listening? is a journey of sound, sight and story. Blending poetry and memoir, the book explores intergenerational displacement, and speaks the truths of a woman who loses her innocence at a young age due to cultural inequity. Through the painful knocks of colonization, Zaynab Mohammed finds her freedom by leaning on the art of listening to herself, to others and to the earth. Are You Listening? is a carefully woven tapestry of transforming pain into beauty, into magic, and into possibility.
“With compelling images of life in a war-torn country, Mohammed’s powerful words explore the fragility of our world and the resiliency of humanity, filled with beautiful and heartbreaking prose and poetry that engages the reader with all senses.”
"As an Indigenous person who grew up in so-called Canada, I know what it is like to be misunderstood, unheard, and unseen. Because I grew up here, I was also taught to misunderstand, to not see, and to not hear the narratives of Muslim Canadians: Palestinians, Iraqi and Lebanese people. With generous honesty, Zaynab Mohammed offers us a chance to truly listen to her story, which is one of family, lineage, and culture. Any person in Canada who is committed to reconciliation should also pledge to undoing and unlearning the racism and xenophobia that we have been taught in the contexts of Mohammed’s homelands. Start here and now. When Mohammed asks Are you Listening? Honour her story and the strength it takes to tell it. Say yes."