Midwifery lecturer publishes first novel

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A multitalented midwifery lecturer at Swansea University is looking forward to the launch of her debut novel, Inshallah.

Alys Einion, a senior lecturer at the College of Human and Health Science, will be signing copies and taking part in a question and answer session at the university's John Smith’s Bookshop at 1pm on Thursday, July 17.

Despite having a successful career in midwifery, Alys says she has dreamed of having a novel published since she was seven.

"Writing this book has been a labour of love. I hope readers will see it for what it is, a story which will resonate with many women as they consider their choices and experiences. It is harrowing, moving and uncompromising,” she said.

Inshallah tells the story of Amanda, who moves to Saudi Arabia with her young twin boys to live with her husband Mohammed.

Her new life is strange and confusing and the treatment of the women of the family seems wrong to a girl raised in Wales. Somehow Amanda must escape, but not without her children. Arabic women will be her salvation, despite the best efforts of the men around her.

Alys researched and wrote the book as part of a PhD in creative writing at Aberystwyth University. She said the story came from her own experiences and those of women she knew.

“When I was 19 I made an inexplicable decision to marry someone unsuitable, and move to North Wales where everyone spoke Welsh and I didn’t. I found myself living a life in a social context I had little understanding of," said Alys.

"I realised that women do make inexplicable decisions when I heard a friend discussing a mother who left her husband and children, married a Muslim and moved to Egypt, never to be heard from again.”

“Later I met a feminist Muslim who discussed the fact that wearing Hijab was liberating for women, not restricting. I realised that women hold a strange position in such a culture and we as outsiders have no idea about it. So I thought, what about a Welsh woman marrying into an Arabic family?”

"I have tried most of my life to write something that could be published. I am totally delighted that this is my first novel. I am already writing another book, which is almost finished. I hope my publishers like it enough to publish it too," she added.

Inshallah, by Alys Einion, is published by Honno priced £8.99.