How to be a Bad Muslim

How to be a Bad Muslim is the elegant, debut non-fiction offering from award-winning New Zealand writer, poet and journalist Mohamed Hassan. It maps the personal and public experience of being Muslim through a lens of identity, Islamophobia, surveillance, migration and language.

Also a poet, Hassan’s work has been shared widely online, and is taught in hundreds of schools across the world. He has toured internationally appeared at TEDx and the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and he represented NZ at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2016. Hassan was nominated for an Online Media Award in 2018 for his work covering the Israel/Palestine conflict, and his RNZ podcast Public Enemy was awarded the Gold Trophy at the 2017 New York Festivals Radio Awards.

Hassan speaks authentically and piercingly on mental health, grief and loss, while weaving memories of an Egyptian immigrant fighting. In this special conversation, he’ll kōrero with Rosabel Tan.

Our all day passes will be available for purchase after the launch of our programme on August 4th. Please note the two events featuring Abbas Nazari and Mohamed Hassan will be included in the all day pass offer.

Wheelchair Accessible.

Sponsored by Bay of Plenty Times.

Mohamed Hassan

Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning poet, journalist, podcaster and producer from Auckland and Cairo. He is the author of the anthology National Anthem (Dead Bird Books, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Ockham NZ Book Awards in 2020, and was the 2015 NZ National Slam Champion.

His poems have been shared widely online, and are taught in hundreds of schools internationally. He has toured his work across New Zealand, Australia, the US and UK, at TEDx and at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and he represented NZ at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2016.

Hassan was nominated for an Online Media Award in 2018 for his work covering the Israel/Palestine conflict, and his RNZ podcast Public Enemy was awarded the Gold Trophy at the 2017 New York Festivals Radio

Rosabel Tan

Rosabel Tan is a creative producer of Peranakan Chinese descent based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She is the Director of Satellites, a multi-disciplinary production house exploring the experience of the Asian diaspora in Aotearoa, and manages The Next Page, a new mentorship programme supporting emerging writers in partnership with The Spinoff, Metro, New Zealand Geographic, The Pantograph Punch and North & South.