The Diverse Bookshelf
Welcome to The Diverse Bookshelf. I’m Samia Aziz, celebrating the power of literature and the voices of authors and change makers from the global majority. Join me as we explore the stories that inspire, connect, and transform our world. Each week I interview an inspiring guest about a whole host of themes and issues while focusing on diverse literature.
Let’s uncover the stories that truly matter—together.
The Diverse Bookshelf
Ep63: Sim Kern on anti-zionsim, anti-semitism, Palestinian literature & climate change
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My guest on the show this week, is Sim Kern, an author whose work I came across only recently. Alongside being a published author, Sim is a content creator, using Instagram and Tik Tok as key tools in her activist life, making videos that inform, educate and empower. Sim is an anti-zionist Jew, dedicating huge amounts of time to the Palestinian liberation movement, while dismantling Israeli propaganda and narratives about the Zionist colonial project.
At the time of recording, the genocidal war on Gaza has been taking place for almost 4 months, with over 30,000 people in Gaza having been killed. Over a million people have been displaced from their homes and are starving, living without clean water, shelter, healthcare, and have nowhere safe to go.
Sim Kern is a Gulf Coast author and environmental journalist writing about climate change, queer identity, and social justice. Their debut horror novella, Depart, Depart!, was selected for the Honor List for the 2020 Otherwise Award. Their short story collection, Real Sugar is Hard to Find, was hailed in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as, “a searing, urgent, but still achingly tender work that will wow any reader of speculative fiction.” As a journalist, they report on petrochemical polluters and drag space billionaires. Sim’s latest novel is called The Free People's Village, set in an alternative reality of 2020, where a war on climate change has been announced.
You can find Sim on social media here:
www.instagram.com/sim_bookstagrams_badly
https://www.tiktok.com/@simkern
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