Womanhood launch with Tahmina Begum

Why do we, as South Asian Muslim women, make the choices we do?

In Womanhood, Tahmina Begum intimately traces the lives of three women across eight years – each living at a crossroads, each shaped by the contradictions and richness of their heritage, each weighing the cost of being a good woman.

Noor longs for a marriage that mirrors the loyalty of her parents’ world and the openness of her own. After a long negotiation between her heart and faith, she has decided to leave the man who is perfect in all ways but one.

Khaira, once the girl in bedazzled jeans and heeled sandals, is twenty years into a life she built at great cost. Expectations written long before her birth have shaped her into someone she no longer recognises.

Moumita strives to be a modern independent woman, even as tradition tugs at her. When a beloved friendship fractures, she begins to ask whether independence is freedom – or another kind of sacrifice.

Together their stories reveal what it means to be a woman today, that love demands courage, and that the most essential journey we take is always the one back to ourselves.

We are delighted to welcome Tahmina Begum to bookhaus to discuss these issues. She will be in conversation with Fozia Ismail (Arawelo Studio). Tickets cost £7 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink and £2 off the book. Presented by bookhaus.

Tahmina Begum has worked as a journalist for nearly a decade. Her previous roles include lifestyle writer at HuffPostUK and she has written for British Vogue, The Guardian, I-D, Dazed, Refinery29, Riposte, Glamour, The Independent, Metro, I Paper and gal-dem, covering a wide scope of topics that centre around the lives of Muslim women and women of colour. Between the years of 2012-2020, she ran the independent print and digital publication XXY Magazine, as recommended by Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful. Begum has contributed to three books, is the producer of the newsletter The Aram and is a podcaster, chair and public speaker.

Fozia Ismail is the founder of Arawelo Eats and co‑founder of dhaqan collective. Her practice moves across food, sound, textiles, and found objects to create material‑led artworks exploring migration, climate, identity, and diasporic memory.

With dhaqan collective, Ismail has exhibited internationally at the British Textile Biennale, Southbank Centre, Biennale Architettura Venice, Weltmuseum Vienna, Playable Cities Osaka, and Jodhpur Art Week, supported by the British Council. The collective’s work has received recognition from the MyWorld Playable Cities Award, Counterpoints Platforma Award, and Columbia University’s Digital Dozen.

Ismail’s ongoing research continues to expand between social practice, inherited material culture, and Somali feminist ways of knowing and making.