Book Blurb

An anthology revealing the multi-faceted experiences of people living in many Muslim worlds, which both challenges stereotypes and the responsibility to disband them.

Two schoolgirls in Yemen skip class, and wander into a yellow circus tent, empty except for one rusty cage. A Jordanian man spends a maddening summer in his sweaty apartment cursing his loud, ignorant neighbours. A woman in Beirut is heartsick, waiting for her kidnapped parrot to return. A young Bangladeshi-American argues with her father about her choice of boyfriend. A lady discovers the secret about the Pakistani neighbour who had stolen her birthday gifts. And an Iraqi soldier pines for an American journalist obsessed with someone else.

This ambitious collection is a four-year quest to find diverse stories from many Muslim worlds that build bridges between each of us, through intimate, and incredibly human experiences of love, loss, laughter and everything in between.

My Review

The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human is a collection of true stories. About 35 writers penned their personal stories, revealing their diverse experiences living in many Muslim worlds in which their stories bring us to look and recognise them beyond their religion – see what they’ve offered up via these stories. Humanity. Honesty. Vulnerabilities. Truth. By this means, this book doesn’t fixate on religion, if you’re wondering about it. It’s more to how these strangers sharing with us about their true-life events that are eventually bound to the same sentiment of shared humanity that we all are familiar of and for that I felt immensely grateful to be able to expand my cross-cultural understanding towards people coming from different cultural backgrounds despite the same religion we have.

Most voices in this book span from the natives in the West to the Arab tribes in the Middle East and the Indians in the East. Their backdrop stories I can say mostly associated with wars. Some of these strangers had their first-hand experiences of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny ruling and the way they described the war scenes were so vivid that I could still have the scenes replaying in my head. What not bone-chilling when these stories are written in the first-person point of view. But what amazes me is the profound bravery in the writers to come up with their stories bare, embracing their ordinary chaos of being human. There’s a broad spectrum of social issues that I could see from their stories such as gaslighting, rampant domestic violence, wars paranoia and also, specific cultural issues that leave most women at the mercy of men. This book has taught me that every person has its own place, ground and worth which transcend race, nationality, gender, and most importantly religion. Reading this compilation of stories that almost took a 4 years quest to complete is worth it. I did laugh, cry and daze into space thinking what would be like if I were in their shoes. Unthinkable.

Here’s my favourite stories from the book that still stay with me to this day;

Forty Days of War by Wasan Qasim (her resilience in remembering the wars in Iraq that she was fortunate enough to escape while perusing through main streets of the foreign country)
Radical Muslim in Love by Wardah Abbas (about her perseverance in finding the guy who didn’t possess patriarchal qualities, in the long run, she finally did find one which makes the story a heart-warming love story to me)
Number Four by Asma Elbadawi (A Sudanese whose life has come through hypocrisy of the male-dominated culture then becoming a successful world-wide basketball player. I did a background check on her and she’s an amazing person for her contribution” in convincing the International Basketball Association to remove a ban on hijab, and religious headwear in the professional sports.” I'm so proud of her achievement, really. If not for this book, I guess I'd be forever continuing my 19 years living in ignorance of her powerful story.)
Main Hoon Junaid by Samia Ahmed (This story made me bawl because it's frustrating that some people refused to look beyond someone’s religion. The animosity for this fallen Junaid stemmed from nothing but religion.)

I do really recommend this book to someone who wants to expand their world with these stories because the authenticity in these diverse stories is so fascinating. For that I wanted to congratulate to Marguerite Richards for being able to work on this 4 years project and collect these golden stories. Lastly, some exciting news about an upcoming event for the book in collaboration with Philippines Normal University. I would definitely in to join an insightful conversation between Marguerite Richards and award-winning author Chriselda Yabes as they explore the themes of diversity and cultural understanding in their books. There'll be a live discussion with Q&A to follow. Here are the details:

if time permits I'll definitely watch it!

About the Author/Editor

Marguerite Richards is an American writer and editor with a background in literature, translation, and magazine publishing. Focusing on world cultures, she travels to understand the nuances that separate us, with the resolve to further our understanding of each other through her work. Based in Sri Lanka, she is currently editing two memoirs by Iranian and Kuwaiti authors, and writing short fiction vignettes for an artist book about birth traditions around the globe.

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