Sikeena Karmali Ahmed

Biography

Sikeena is a writer, historian and cultural critic who engages passionately with historical narratives that leave out the stories of the marginalised. She writes to capture the tales of human lives, of feeling and passion, joy and tragedy, loss and love that the great sweeping narratives of history leave out. Having been trained as a cultural theorist and a historian, it has always baffled her that historical accounts give us facts and analysis but leave out the stories of the people who lived during those times. Sikeena worked in international development and human rights for a number of years – primarily in Muslim-majority cultures in the Middle East, including Egypt, Palestine and Syria; Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; as well as the Indian subcontinent. Her storytelling is also advocacy, as she seeks to unearth the stories of those who are unrepresented in the pages of historical annals. In this way, she hopes to make spaces – cultural, history and literary, where the disenfranchised can have a voice in the telling of world history.