Hawaa Ayoub, author of When a Bulbul Sings , The Coalition and Revelation: A True Translation of the Bible, has experienced the traumas of forced child marriage first hand. She hopes to raise awareness through writing about child marriage.
Hawaa lived in Yemen for nineteen years, the first eight years in a remote region whose inhabitants hadn’t changed their way of life since ancient times, in an area at the time inaccessible to outsiders including Yemenis from outside the region.
When a Bulbul Sings is her first novel.
She writes about forced and child marriage in a bid to raise awareness globally to help towards ending child marriage in Yemen and other countries where millions of underage girls are either forced or entered into marriage. Having gone through forced child marriage to an adult, Hawaa Ayoub knows the child-bride not only suffers the traumas of rape and being rudely thrust into the adult world, but a child-bride can also live with the psychological, emotional and physical consequences throughout her life.
When a Bulbul Sings is an objective story where the aim is to explain, highlight and criticise forced, early and child marriage without vilifying whole nations nor making biased sweeping statements which unfairly stereotype whole communities and even countries.