A Pure Heart is “[a] captivating novel about family, love, and home. Hassib masterfully excavates the secret loyalties that drive women to make fateful choices and, in so doing, explores important themes of guilt and responsibility, shame and forgiveness.”
—Laila Lalami, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Moor’s Account

Rajia Hassib was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, before moving to the US at age twenty-three. A decade later, she returned to college to study English Writing and Literature and to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a writer. She holds a BA and an MA in English, both from Marshall University. After graduation, she worked briefly as a part-time Instructor of English at Marshall University, teaching an Introduction to Creative Writing class as well as a class on Postcolonial Literature. She lives in Charleston, WV with her husband and two children.
 
Susan Muaddi Darraj’s short story collection, A Curious Land: Stories from Home, was named the winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, judged by Jaime Manrique.   It also won the 2016 Arab American Book Award, a 2016 American Book Award, and was shortlisted for a Palestine Book Award. Her previous short story collection, The Inheritance of Exile, was published in 2007 by University of Notre Dame Press.

In 2018, she was named a Ford Fellow by USA Artists. Susan also is a two-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. She has also been awarded a Ruby’s Artist Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation.

In January 2020, Capstone Books launched her debut children’s chapter book series, Farah Rocks, about a smart, brave Palestinian American girl named Farah Hajjar.

Rajia Hassib on A Pure Heart with Susan Muaddi Darraj