Books

Voice of Rebellion book cover

Voice of Rebellion – How Mozhdah Jamalzadah Brought Hope to Afghanistan 

Voice of Rebellion is the first-ever biography of Mozhdah Jamalzadah: refugee, pop singer, and champion of women’s rights  Many have tried to silence her, but Mozhdah Jamalzadah remains the most powerful female voice of her generation in Afghanistan, boldly speaking out about women’s rights. Voice of Rebellion charts her incredible journey, including arriving in Canada as a child refugee, setting her father’s protest poem to music (and making it a #1 hit), performing that song for Michelle and Barack Obama, and, finally, being invited to host her own show in Afghanistan. The Mozhdah Show earned her the nickname, “The Oprah of Afghanistan” and tackled taboo subjects like divorce and domestic violence for the first time in the country’s history. But even as her words resonated with women and families, Mozhdah received death threats and was eventually forced to return to Canada. Traversing Central Asia and North America, Voice of Rebellion profiles a devoted singer and activist who continues to fight for change, even from afar.

Voice of Rebellion won the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Book Award for Social Justice Writing in 2019.

An emaciated internee at Stanley Civilian Internment Camp in Hong Kong shows the tiny quantity of rice and stew meant to feed five internees. Photo: Imperial War Museums.

Bone Through Skin –  Love and Hope in a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp

Bone Through Skin is a creative non-fiction novel based upon the true story of Roberta Staley’s great aunt, Sally Staley. Born in Leicester, England and raised in Saskatchewan, Sally was the daughter of Prairie midwife and single mother Sarah Staley. As a young woman, Sally moved to Vancouver, fell in love and eventually emigrated to Hong Kong in the South Pacific before the outbreak of the Second World War. She and her husband, Gordon Castle, who worked as a cargo superintendent at the Hong Kong & Kowloon Wharf and Godown Co., were detained for more than three years in Stanley Civilian Internment Camp by the  Japanese after Imperial Forces crushed the poorly defended colony.
Bone Through Skin is an epic war saga about the transcendence of love and hope in the face of inconceivable brutality. (In development.) 

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