Suleika Jaouad
{{Short description|American writer and motivational speaker}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2022}}
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| image = Writer Suleika Jaouad in 2025.jpg
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| caption = Jaouad in 2025
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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1988|7|5}}{{cite instagram|user=suleikajaouad|postid=CCQ06lXgQ9p|date=2020-07-05|title=It is my day of birth and I am 32 years old!|last=Jaouad|first=Suleika}}
| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
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| occupation = Writer, advocate, and motivational speaker
| years_active = 2019–present
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| spouse = {{marriage|Jon Batiste|2022}}
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Suleika Jaouad ({{IPAc-en|s|uː|ˈ|l|eɪ|k|ə|_|dʒ|ə|ˈ|w|ɑː|d}} {{respell|soo|LAY|kə jə|WAHD}};{{Cite book |last=Jaouad |first=Suleika |title=Between Two Kingdoms |date=2021 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-0-399-58858-7 |location=New York |edition=1st |oclc=1105148693 |lccn=2021-289350}} {{langx|ar|سليكة جواد}}; born July 5, 1988) is an American writer, advocate, and motivational speaker.{{cite web |url=http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/suleika-jaoud-life-interrupted-new-york-times-cancer-emmy/98246 |title=Suleika Jaouad's Life Joyfully Interrupted by Emmy Awards |work=Adweek |date=October 3, 2013 |access-date=April 3, 2022 |last=Horgan |first=Richard |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150530094035/http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/suleika-jaoud-life-interrupted-new-york-times-cancer-emmy/98246 |archive-date=May 30, 2015 |url-status=dead}} She is the author of the "Life, Interrupted" column in The New York Times and has also written for Vogue, Glamour, NPR's All Things Considered and Women's Health. Her 2021 memoir Between Two Kingdoms, covering her struggle with leukemia, was a New York Times Best Seller.
Early life and education
Jaouad was born in New York City to a Muslim father from Tunisia and a Catholic mother from Switzerland.{{cite web |url=https://www.suleikajaouad.com/about |title=About Suleika Jaouad |author= |date=2022 |website=suleikajaouad.com |access-date=November 2, 2022}} Her father, Hédi, taught French at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her mother, Anne, is an artist.{{rp|36–38}} Suleika attended the Juilliard School's pre-college program, where she studied the double bass.
She attended Princeton University, where she majored in Near Eastern studies and double-minored in French and gender studies, receiving an AB with highest honors in 2010. A decade later, in 2020, she earned an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College.{{cite magazine |url=https://paw.princeton.edu/article/how-writer-suleika-jaouad-10-journeyed-sickness-health |title=How Writer Suleika Jaouad '10 Journeyed from Sickness to Health |first=Julia M. |last=Klein |date=January 2021 |magazine=Princeton Alumni Weekly}} Jaouad travels around the U.S., teaching writing and wellness workshops and speaking at high schools, universities, hospitals, corporations, fund-raisers, and professional events. Her story has been featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation, NBC's Weekend Today, and the CBS News, while also appearing in The Paris Review, the Los Angeles Times, and Darling magazine, among others.{{Cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/06/12/191028685/life-resumes-looking-ahead-with-suleika-jaouad |title=Life Resumes: Looking Ahead With Suleika Jaouad |website=NPR.org |language=en |access-date=2019-07-01}} Her TED Talk, entitled "What almost dying taught me about living," was released in June 2019.{{Cite web |url=https://www.ted.com/talks/suleika_jaouad_what_almost_dying_taught_me_about_living |title=What almost dying taught me about living |last=Jaouad |first=Suleika |date=April 2019 |publisher=TED |language=en |access-date=2019-07-01}}
''Between Two Kingdoms''
{{Infobox book
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| name = Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
| author = Suleika Jaouad
| image = Between_Two_Kingdoms.jpeg
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| country = United States
| language = English
| genre = Memoir
| publisher = Random House
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| media_type = Print (Hardcover, Paperback), Audiobook
| pages = 352
| isbn = 9780399588587
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| pub_date = February 9, 2021
| isbn_note = Hardcover
}}
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted is a memoir published in 2021 by Random House that discusses her cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. The title of the book comes from a line in Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor: "Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick."{{cite book |last=Sontag |first=Susan |author-link=Susan Sontag |date=1979 |title=Illness as Metaphor |url=https://archive.org/details/illnessasmetapho00sont/page/n9/mode/2up |location=New York |publisher=Vintage Books |page=3 |edition=First Vintage Books |isbn=9780394728445 |oclc=4493850 |url-access=registration}}
In the book, Jaouad revisits her life before and after her cancer diagnosis "to forge a path forward after remission. Drawing on journals, medical records, letters, e-mails, and interviews with many of those who appear across its pages, Jaouad's memoir details her early symptoms, initial diagnosis and then, in great detail, the physical, mental, and emotional toll cancer takes on her and those around her."{{Cite web |date=2021-02-19 |title=Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted |url=https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=997 |access-date=2022-07-23 |website=Shelf Awareness}}
The book was generally well received by critics, including starred reviews from Booklist,{{Cite book |last=Sawyers |first=June |date=2020-12-15 |title=Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted |url=https://www.booklistonline.com/Between-Two-Kingdoms-A-Memoir-of-a-Life-Interrupted-/pid=9740961 |access-date=2022-07-23 |via=Booklist}} Library Journal,{{Cite web |last=Olmstead |first=Barrie |date=2021-02-01 |title=Between Two Kingdoms |url=https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/between-two-kingdoms |access-date=2022-07-23 |website=Library Journal}} and Publishers Weekly.{{Cite web |date= |title=Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780399588587 |access-date=2022-07-23 |website=Publishers Weekly}}
Writing for Library Journal, Barrie Olmstead wrote, "Jaouad does a beautiful job of writing from this place of 'dual citizenship,' where she finds pain but also joy, kinship, and possibility." Publishers Weekly called the book "a stunning memoir, well-crafted and hard to put down," while Booklist
Between Two Kingdoms also received positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and Shelf Awareness. Kirkus Reviews called the book "[m]emorable, lyrical, and ultimately hopeful: a book that speaks intently to anyone who suffers from illness and loss."{{Cite web |date=2020-12-15 |title=Between Two Kingdoms |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/suleika-jaouad/between-two-kingdoms/ |access-date=2022-07-23 |website=Kirkus Reviews}} According to NPR Heller McAlpin, "Jaouad's book stands out not only because she has lived to parse the saga of her medical battle with the benefit of hindsight, but also because it encompasses the less familiar tale of what it's like to survive and have to figure out how to live again."{{Cite news |last=McAlpin |first=Heller |date=2021-02-09 |title='Between Two Kingdoms' Tells A Story Of Survival — And Of A Journey To Learn To Live |url=https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965693636/between-two-kingdoms-tells-a-story-of-survival-and-of-a-journey-to-learn-to-live |access-date=2022-07-23 |work=NPR |language=en}} Shelf Awareness explained,
Though heavy, Jaouad's story is steeped in a wry optimism. This is in part because readers know Jaouad will survive to write this book, but it is also a testament to what makes Between Two Kingdoms so compelling: Jaouad's uncanny ability to reach into her pain and turn it into something else. She does not deny or gloss over the challenges of her diagnosis or the gut-wrenching torture of some of her treatments, yet she reckons with ways these impossible years of her life forged her into the woman she has since become.The Los Angeles Times also commended Jaouad's openness and candor, calling it key to the book.{{Cite web |last=Ulin |first=David L. |date=2021-02-15 |title=Review: A survivor's memoir on sickness and health — 'we are all terminal patients on this earth' |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-02-15/review-between-two-kingdoms-suleika-jaouad-cancer-memoir |access-date=2022-07-23 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}
Booklist also provided a positive review for the audiobook, noting, "Jaouad, reading her own work, is a sympathetic and appealing narrator. Although she tells a difficult and painful story, her thoughtful tone never wavers toward anger or bitterness. Instead, she describes difficult subjects patiently, only adding emphasis to conversations to convey the truly fraught nature of their subjects."{{Cite book |last=Philbrick |first=Jane |date=2021-04-01 |title=Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted |url=https://www.booklistonline.com/Between-Two-Kingdoms-A-Memoir-of-a-Life-Interrupted-/pid=9745430 |access-date=2022-07-23 |via=Booklist}}
Personal life
Jaouad is married to musician Jon Batiste, with whom she has been in a relationship since 2014. Jaouad and Batiste met as teenagers at band camp.{{cite news |last=Jaouad |first=Suleika |date=24 May 2012 |title=Life, Interrupted: The Beat Goes On |url=https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/life-interrupted-the-beat-goes-on/?mtrref=t.co&gwh=2F868642EE6716F8A27A7760D3A849DB |access-date=4 April 2022 |work=New York Times}} In April 2022, the couple revealed in a television interview that they had married in February 2022.{{cite news |last=Morgan |first=David |date=April 3, 2022 |title=Jon Batiste, Suleika Jaouad announce they were secretly married |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jon-batiste-suleika-jaouad-announce-they-were-secretly-married/ |access-date=April 3, 2022 |work=CBS News}}
When Jaouad was diagnosed with a rare form of acute myeloid leukemia in 2011, doctors said she had only a 35% chance of surviving. She survived and has written and spoken extensively about her medical experiences. Her column, "Life, Interrupted," was part of the New York Times Well blog.{{Cite web |last=Albo |first=Amy |title=AAMC 2014: 'Life, Interrupted' author Suleika Jaouad gives a voice to oncology tweens |url=https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/innovation/blog/2014/11/suleika-jaouad%20.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180112184625/https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/innovation/blog/2014/11/suleika-jaouad%20.php |archive-date=January 12, 2018 |access-date=August 28, 2022 |website=University of Utah UHealth |language=en}} A video based on the column received an Emmy award. In December 2021, Jaouad announced that her cancer had returned and she had undergone a second bone marrow transplant.{{cite news |last=Parker-Pope |first=Tara |date=29 March 2022 |title=Interrupted, Again: Suleika Jaouad on Cancer and Healing the Second Time Around |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/well/live/suleika-jaouad-life-interrupted-cancer.html |access-date=29 August 2022 |work=New York Times}} The cancer returned for a third time in the summer of 2024.{{Cite web |last=Jaouad |first=Suleika |date=2024-09-01 |title=Back Again |url=https://theisolationjournals.substack.com/p/back-again |access-date=2025-02-03 |website=The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad}}
In 2023, she was featured in the documentary film American Symphony, directed by Matthew Heineman, which captures her fighting the return of her cancer while her husband, Jon Batiste, is composing his first symphony.{{cite web |author=Feinberg, Dan |date=September 1, 2023 |title=American Symphony' Review: Matthew Heineman's Doc Is a Moving, Music-Filled Love Story |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/american-symphony-review-matthew-heineman-1235579210/ |access-date=October 1, 2023 |website=hollywoodreporter.com}}
Awards
| class="wikitable sortable"
!Year !Award !Result !Ref. |
| 2021
|Goodreads Choice Award for Memoir & Autobiography |Nominee |
| 2021
|Booklist Editors' Choice: Adult Books |Selection |
| 2021
|Booklist's Best Memoirs of 2021 |Top 10 |
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Official website|suleikajaouad.com}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaouad, Suleika}}
Category:21st-century American women journalists
Category:21st-century American journalists
Category:21st-century American memoirists
Category:American health and wellness writers
Category:The New York Times columnists
Category:American women columnists
Category:American journalists of Arab descent
Category:Writers from New York City
Category:Princeton University alumni
Category:American people of Tunisian descent
Category:American people of Swiss descent