Nadine Kaadan is an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator from Damascus, Syria, now living in London where she completed her Masters in Art and Politics at Goldsmiths University. Her mission is to encourage a reading culture in the Arab world and she has published over 15 books with various publishers.
She is simply passionate about her city – Damascus – and its old architecture and loves to draw its courtyards and tell its tales. Her stories sometimes touch on delicate subjects like children with special needs and the ongoing troubled situation in the Arab world. Her picture book Leila, Answer me! won the Anna Lindh award for the best fiction book for children with special needs in 2011, and is now being used to teach the Arabic language at Harvard University and Tufts University.
The book was recently featured in the Guardian and described as ‘a badly needed story for young people’. Her latest book Ghadan (‘Tomorrow’) about the daily life of a little boy during the Syrian conflict was positively reviewed in Corriere della Serra, Italy, under the title ‘I drew a dream of peace for Syria’. www.awan.org.uk