Zana Muhsen

Last updated

Zana Muhsen
Born1965 (age 58–59)
Birmingham, England
Occupation Author
Subject Non-fiction
Notable worksSold: Story of Modern-day Slavery, A Promise to Nadia

Zana Muhsen (born in 1965 in Birmingham, England), is a British author known for her book Sold: Story of Modern-day Slavery and its follow-up A Promise to Nadia. [1] The books narrate the experiences that she and her sister Nadia (born 1966) went through after they were sold into marriage by their father, Muthanna Muhsen, a Yemeni émigré. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Overview

In the books and in interviews, Muhsen states that she and her sister had been sent to Yemen under the assumption that they were going on holiday to meet the paternal side of their family. Muhsen asserts that neither she nor her sister were aware of their father's plans, although her sister Nadia says that her father showed her a photograph of her future husband, Mohammed, in the UK, and that she knew she was going to be married. [2]

On their arrival in Maqbanah, Zana, 15 and Nadia, 13 learned from Abdul Khada that she was the spouse of a teenage son of the father's friend. Zana lived in a town called Hockail and Nadia lived in Ashube. Their mother, Miriam Ali, an English woman, appealed unsuccessfully to the Foreign Office for assistance, but was told that the Yemeni government had stated that as they were now married to Yemeni men, they could only leave the country with their husbands' permission. [2] [5]

In 1987, an Observer journalist, Eileen McDonald, visited the girls and wrote a series of articles portraying the Muhsens as cruelly-treated slaves. The girls begged McDonald, and her male photographer, to help them leave the country, and the media coverage provoked an outcry in the UK. [2] [6] This led to the Yemeni government giving the Muhsens permission to leave the country in 1988, but forbade them from taking their children (Zana had one child, Marcus, Cyan and Leam, and Nadia three, Haney and Tina are two of them). [2] [5] [7]

Zana Muhsen remained in England and in 1992, wrote Sold: Story of Modern-day Slavery with the ghostwriter Andrew Crofts, describing her experiences. [8] It became an international bestseller and was dramatised by BBC Radio 4. [9] The picture of a veiled woman on the cover of Sold is Nadia Muhsen. In 2001, Zana Muhsen and Crofts wrote a follow-up, A Promise to Nadia - the true story of a British slave. Nadia Muhsen gave an interview to Melanie Finn, a journalist for The Guardian, in 2002 in which she stated that she was happy with her life, saying, "It was never in my mind that I wanted to leave. It's just my sister, she wasn't comfortable." [2]

According to Zana's Instagram in 2015, Nadia and her children (including Marcus) had made it to England. [10]

Bibliography

Further reading

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Gone with the Wind</i> (novel) 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell

Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea". This historical novel features a coming-of-age story, with the title taken from the poem "Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae", written by Ernest Dowson.

<i>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> 1885 novel by Mark Twain

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.

<i>Uncle Toms Cabin</i> 1852 novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie-Joseph Angélique</span> 18th-century slave in French North America; executed for arson

Marie-Josèphe dite Angélique was the name given to a Portuguese-born black slave in New France by her last enslavers. She was tried and convicted of setting fire to her enslaver's home, burning much of what is now referred to as Old Montreal. It had been generally accepted that Angélique was guilty, but it has recently been argued that she was innocent of the crime and was convicted more on the basis of her reputation as a rebellious runaway slave than on the basis of factual evidence. A competing theory is that she was guilty of the crime but was acting in rebellion against slavery. No consensus has been reached by historians regarding Angélique's actual guilt or innocence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mel B</span> British singer and TV personality

Melanie Janine Brown, commonly known as Mel B or Melanie B, is an English singer, songwriter, television personality, and actress. She rose to fame in the mid 1990s as a member of the pop girl group the Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Scary Spice. With over 100 million records sold worldwide, the group became the best-selling female group of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Jacobs</span> African-American abolitionist and writer (d. 1897)

Harriet Jacobs was an African-American abolitionist and writer whose autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is now considered an "American classic".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thandiwe Newton</span> English actress (born 1972)

Melanie Thandiwe Newton, formerly credited as Thandie Newton, is a British actress. She has received various awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award, and a BAFTA Award, in addition to nominations for two Golden Globe Awards. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to film and charity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olaudah Equiano</span> Abolitionist and writer (c. 1745 – 1797)

Olaudah Equiano, known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa, was a writer and abolitionist. According to his memoir, he was from the village of Essaka in modern southern Nigeria. Enslaved as a child in West Africa, he was shipped to the Caribbean and sold to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more before purchasing his freedom in 1766.

<i>Clotel</i> Novel by William Wells Brown

Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown, who escaped from slavery in 1834 at the age of 20, published the book in London. He was staying after a lecture tour to evade possible recapture due to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Set in the early nineteenth century, it is considered the first novel published by an African American and is set in the United States. Three additional versions were published through 1867.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mende Nazer</span>

Mende Nazer is a UK-resident, Sudanese author and human rights activist. Nazer was a slave in Sudan and in London for eight years. She later co-wrote the 2002 book Slave: My True Story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Prince</span> West Indian writer and enslaved woman (c. 1788–after 1833)

Mary Prince was the first black woman to publish an autobiography of her experience as a slave, born in the colony of Bermuda to an enslaved family of African descent. After being sold a number of times and being moved around the Caribbean, she was brought to England as a servant in 1828, and later left her enslaver.

For the Wales international footballer see Andrew Crofts (footballer)

<i>Wonderland</i> (1999 film) 1999 British film

Wonderland is a 1999 British drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film stars Ian Hart, Shirley Henderson, Kika Markham, Gina McKee, Molly Parker, Jack Shepherd, John Simm, Stuart Townsend, Enzo Cilenti, and Sarah-Jane Potts.

<i>Pasión</i> (TV series) Mexican TV series or program

Pasión is a Mexican telenovela produced by Carla Estrada for Televisa in 2007. It is the fourth historical fiction telenovela produced by Carla Estrada after Alondra, Amor real and Alborada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethany Veney</span> American writer

Bethany Veney, was an American writer whose autobiography and slave narrative, Aunt Betty's Story: The Narrative of Bethany Veney, A Slave Woman, was published in 1889. Born into slavery on a farm near Luray, Virginia, as Bethany Johnson, married twice, first to an enslaved man, Jerry Fickland, with whom she had a daughter, Charlotte. He was sold away from her and she later married Frank Veney, a free black man. She was sold on an auction block to her enslaver, George J. Adams, who brought her to Providence, Rhode Island, and later to Worcester, Massachusetts. After the American Civil War, Veney made four trips to Virginia to move her daughter and her family and 16 additional family members north to New England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia A. J. Foote</span> American deacon

Julia A. J. Foote was ordained as the first woman deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the second to be ordained as an elder. She was a leader in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, preaching the doctrine of entire sanctification throughout pulpits of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion connexion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Yemen</span>

Slavery in Yemen was formally abolished in the 1960s. However, it has been reported that enslavement still occurred in the 21st-century.

<i>The Book of Negroes</i> (miniseries) Television series

The Book of Negroes is a 2015 television miniseries based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill. The book was inspired by the British freeing and evacuation of former slaves, known as Black Loyalists, who had left rebel masters during the American Revolutionary War. The British transported some 3,000 Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia for resettlement, documenting their names in what was called the Book of Negroes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadia Murad</span> Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq and winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, as part of the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq and much of her community was massacred. After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadia Al-Sakkaf</span> Yemeni politician; editor-in-chief of the Yemen Times

Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf is a former Yemeni Minister and politician. She was the editor in chief of the Yemen Times from 2005 until 2014, before becoming Yemen's first female Minister of Information. She fled Yemen in 2015 after the coup and is currently an independent researcher in politics, media, development and gender studies based in the United Kingdom. In 2011, Al-Sakkaf gave a popular TED talk called "See Yemen through my eyes" which had over 3 million views.

References

  1. ↑ "Father tricks daughters into far-off marriages". The Lewiston Journal. 6 January 1988. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Finn, Melanie (1 April 2002). "Nadia's choice". The Guardian. Guardian Newspapers. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
  3. ↑ Ware, Vron (December 1992). "Moments of Danger: Race, Gender, and Memories of Empire". History and Theory. 31 (4). History and Theory, Vol. 31, No. 4: 116–137. doi:10.2307/2505418. JSTOR   2505418.
  4. ↑ "The danger of westerners being slaves to arrogance". The Herald - Glasgow. 2 April 2002. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Nadia Muhsin : The Mystery Unveiled". Yemen Times. 31 January 2000. Archived from the original on 9 January 2008. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
  6. ↑ "Unwilling Brides From Birmingham Stranded In Yemen". The Sydney Morning Herald. 22 December 1987. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  7. ↑ "Tears as the 'slave brides' see mum". Evening Times. 5 January 1988. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  8. ↑ Walker, Duncan (21 May 2004). "I'm a celebrity, get me a ghost writer". BBC News Magazine. BBC. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
  9. ↑ Crofts, Andrew. "Sold". Archived from the original on 7 June 2007. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
  10. ↑ "Zana Muhsen on Instagram: "With love, Zana."". Instagram. 30 July 2015. Retrieved 12 April 2023.
  11. ↑ "Zana still suffering the sins of the father". Independent (Ireland). Retrieved 9 April 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.