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Shahd Alshammari has Multiple Sclerosis and is a Kuwaiti-Palestinian author and academic. After gaining her PhD in the UK, she became an Assistant Professor of Literature in Kuwait. Her research interests focus on women with mental illness in literature. Alshammari is especially interested in the concept of hybridity, having been born to a Bedouin father and a Palestinian mother. She is also interested in Disability Studies and the correlation of disability studies with identity in the Arab world, having been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 18.
[Alshammari] conveys eloquently and candidly the randomness of her multiple sclerosis, communicating what it's like to live in her body - Arab, female, disabled - and how her illness has shaped her education and her life as an academic. [Her] prose is at once lively and deadly serious, vividly somatic and deeply thoughtful, highly engaging. * G.T. Couser, author of Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life WritingG.T. Couser, author of Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing * The core of this book lies in its intimate questioning of loneliness and disability ... Shahd Alshammari's sensuous prose explores the manipulation of memory, the question of time, and gender politics ... It is a brave book. * Jokha Alharthi Omani author of Celestial bodies, winner of the International Man Booker Prize (2019) * A necessary and beautiful account of life with a sometimes-invisible and unpredictable disability, complicated by both patriarchy and racism, as well as a professor's love letter to the act of teaching and being taught. * Marcia Lynx Qualey, @Arablit * Head above Water fills a gap in disability narratives by Arab Women. At once, a sad story, on loss, death and the inability to cry; but also a story full of hope, love and appreciation for life and for friendship ... The result is a sanguine memoir, more, on ability rather than disability, on wellness rather than illness. * Dr. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley, author of Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies * Beautifully written in an approachable tone. The book offers numerous anecdotes filled with trials and tribulations, historical narratives and childhood dreams, and above all human moments that remind us that wherever we lie on the spectrum of being fully able bodied human beings or significantly disabled, we all share similar fears and more importantly hopes. * Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, writer and lecturer, founder of Barjeel Art Foundation * Alshammari's memoir breaks new ground in representing the lives of disabled Arab women. Exploring connections between the body, language, and culture ... [it] is a sensitive and moving invitation to reconsider the stories that we are made of. * Dr. Roxanne Douglas, University of Warwick * Alshammari's memoir of life with MS is one of the first distinctly 21st century illness narratives. She situates chronic illness at the intersection of issues that include gender, exile, medical experimentation, and the politics of the Middle East. * Arthur W. Frank, Ph.D. Author of At the Will of the Body and The Wounded Storyteller *
