Sara Al Husaini’s powerful debut, A Disobedient Girl, has won the Young Aleksis Award, an honor given to the best Finnish book published in the past year. Following the footsteps of last year’s winner, our very own Maria Turtschaninoff with her international bestseller Inherited Land, this year’s prize celebrates al Husaini’s captivating storytelling.

The award jury, comprising high school students, praised the novel for its bold societal stance and relatable themes.:

The winning work, Disobedient Girl, is both important and unique in its subject matter. The plot addresses a woman’s journey to independence and the importance of having a voice in a culture where this is not a given. The book takes a strong societal stance, serves as peer support, and changes the world.

The work is written with honesty and directness. The descriptions in the book are easily relatable. The fact that the book is based on reality is thought-provoking, as in today’s Western societies, freedoms are often taken for granted. There are still countries where women are under the control of men. These cultural differences are naturally woven into the story.
–The Young Aleksis Award Jury

Based on the author’s own experiences, A Disobedient Girl takes a very close and visceral look at the normalized misogyny and oppression of women in conservative Islamic tradition and deals with themes such as liberty, womanhood, and self-determination. It also highlights how such traumas can be inherited through the generations and how these grievances can only be transcended with dialogue and the will to change.

Originally published June 2023, A Disobedient Girl was one of the most successful debut titles of 2023 in Finland. It has sold over 35,000 copies, it was nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize of 2023 and the Savonia Prize of 2023, and it won the BookBeat Newcomer of the Year Award of 2023!

Click here to download all English reading materials for the ravishing and powerful debut.

A Disobedient Girl shows what kind of acts are needed to stop the circle of evil. What kind of books are needed to change the world. And Sara Al Husaini is a first-class example of an author capable of this.
– Savon Sanomat newspaper

Sara Al Husaini’s novel A Disobedient Girl should be on the reading list of as many people as possible. It is an eye-opening and hopefully heart-opening story – or rather a document of sorts – about how the right to, among others, one’s own body is not everyone’s privilege.
–  Kaisa Koski, Hämeen Sanomat newspaper

A DISOBEDIENT GIRL

Sara Al Husaini

A mother is escorting her daughter, trembling with fear, to the wedding suite door. This is what she’s been raised for ever since she was little, kept in wrapping paper like a precious sweet. This is the reason why she was brought back from Finland to Iraq.

A Disobedient Girl is an astonishingly honest and authentic story about the history of subjugating and silencing women, about abandoning one’s faith, honor violence, forced marriage, Islamic morality, the price of freedom, and the desperate desire for the right to self-determination.