Majeda Awawdeh - The Sky is Concave

Name: Majeda Awawdeh - The Sky is Concave
Start: 2026-10-22T18:00:00+10:00
End: 2026-10-22T18:00:00+10:00
Location: Upstairs at Gleebooks

About

6pm for 6.30pm Thursday 22nd October

Majeda Awawdeh in conversation with Amani Haydar

Born near Nazareth as a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Majeda Awawdeh learns early the limits imposed on her body, her voice and her dreams.

After marrying at just seventeen to escape an increasingly stifling home life and continue her education, Majeda finds herself shouldering the double burden of occupation and patriarchy in another kind of prison. Armed only with singular determination, love for her three young children and passion for learning, she begins to redraw the boundaries of her reality.

In The Sky Is Concave, Majeda recounts her journey through a childhood shaped by civil discrimination and rising religious conservatism to hard-won intellectual, financial and personal freedom as a scholar and award-winning educational entrepreneur in Australia.

Written with fierce, poetic honesty, The Sky Is Concave is a testament to courage and reinvention. It is an unforgettable story of daring to question the limits of your world and reshaping your own sky.

Dr Majeda Awawdeh is an academic, entrepreneur and advocate for women’s education based in Sydney, Australia. Born in the 1948 region, one of two million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship living under occupation, her early life was shaped by patriarchy, civil discrimination, the rise of Islamic conservatism and the complex realities of being a Palestinian citizen of Israel. Majeda holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, a master’s in Mathematics Education, and a PhD in Mathematics Education and Cognitive Load Theory. She is also a winner of a Telstra Business Women’s Award.

Amani Haydar is an award-winning writer, visual artist, lawyer and advocate for women’s health and safety based in Western Sydney. Amani’s debut memoir The Mother Wound has been the recipient of multiple accolades, including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. Amani is also the recipient of the 2021 UTS Faculty of Law Alumni Award, and was named Local Woman of the Year for Bankstown at the 2020 NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year Awards in recognition of her advocacy against domestic violence. As a distinguished visual artist, Amani is also a former Archibald Prize finalist.