When Samantha Herron visited Morocco for the first time it changed the course of her life. On her return to London she abandoned a successful art career in order to study Arabic. She went on to spend time living with a family of former nomads in Morocco’s Draa Valley on the edge of the Sahara Desert.

​

Her previous work includes the English and Arabic publication DARDASHA: TESTIMONIES OF MIGRATION BY MOROCCAN WOMEN (Soul Bay Press 2011), which was produced in association with the Al Hasaniya Moroccan Women’s Centre and featured at Nour Festival of Arts 2013.

​

Samantha’s debut collection THE DJINN IN THE SKULL: STORIES FROM HIDDEN MOROCCO is her first work of fiction.

​

Samantha first presented some of her stories at The Storytelling Circle at Nour Festival of Arts 2014. She also appeared at the 2015  Gibraltar International Literary Festival and the 2016  Oxford Literary Festival, where she talked to author and critic Iain Finlayson about the stories in THE DJINN IN THE SKULL: STORIES FROM HIDDEN MOROCCO and her experiences living with the family in Morocco.

 

In 2016 she delivered a series of talks at the American Cultural Associations’sLanguage Centres in Morocco, the Arabic Language Institute in Fez  and the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival.

 

Visit Samantha’s website where you can read an interview with Samantha which first appeared on the Idries Shah Foundation blog.

​

Samantha is currently writing a new collection of short stories, learning Greek, and exploring Sufism.