“Two women, two cultures, and a friendship that freed them both.”
That’s the tagline on the jacket of a book by Shelley Davidow and Shaimaa Khalil being launched in Peregian on Friday 10 June.
It sounds like a pretty standard pitch you’d find on a lot of covers, but in this particular case it’s actually more understated than over-hyped.
Shelley and Shaimaa met 20 years ago at the University of Qatar where Shelley was a teacher and Shaimaa a student. Shelley is an Ashkenazi Jew from South Africa and Shaimaa is a Muslim from Egypt. Despite their geographical, religious and cultural differences, these two women found common ground, which eventuated in a deep and enduring friendship.
Now that Shaimaa is in Australia as the BBC’s Australian correspondent, the two have shared their fascinating correspondence, their experiences and their friendship with us in the form of a wonderful two-handed memoir, Runaways.
These days Shelley calls the Sunshine Coast home.
The author of 46 books, she is a creative writing tutor, a lecturer at Sunshine Coast University, and a director of the new Sunshine Coast Creative Writing Institute, which was featured in Noosa Today in April.
Shaimaa is living in Sydney while on assignment for BBC London, but has worked extensively in the Middle East, covering some of the biggest global stories of our time.
Read the article in Noosa Today.