Martyr

Book excerpt: Martyr was written over a three year period between 2015 and 2018. It was begun while Kathleen was living in Algiers, Algeria with her daughter and continues through the summer of 2018 in Oran, Tlemcen, Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria and through the fall of 2018. In 2008, Kathleen's son Rayan Mehdi passed away and she was inconsolable. This book, MARTYR, is the result of three years of therapeutic writing. Kathleen writes in English but often incorporates Algerian Dardja or Algerian Arabic into her writing. Martyr is the sequel to THE BOOK OF MOULAY, published in 2015. There are also poems written after Kathleen visited Morocco in 2015. There are influences from both countries in the body of her work. Kathleen took her daughter Zahra to Algeria in the winter of 2015 2016 and lived in Algiers in an apartment in a neighborhood called Birmourad Rais. She returned to Algeria in the summer of 2018 and travelled to Batna and drove across the country and wrote and filmed.