Nadia Mahjouri is a Moroccan Australian writer, counsellor specialising in maternal mental health and host of The Whole Truth Motherhood and The Writing life podcast. Her background is in health policy, governance and academia, focusing on ethics and feminist philosophy.

She has been published in anthology Emergence (Hardie Grant), Island online and Mamamia and was shortlisted for The Deborah Cass Prize, QWC Publishable Competition, SBS Emerging Writers Competition. She was awarded an Arts Tas ASA Mentorship, a playwriting mentorship from APT, a QWC Varuna Fellowship, and an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Fellowship. Half Truth (PRH) is her debut novel.

If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?

I would have dinner with the Amazigh (Berber) warrior Dihya (al-Kahina) - a powerful woman from the century in North Africa where she led the fight to protect her land from Arab armies during the early Islamic expansion. Little is known about the details of her life so I would love to sit to dinner with this woman who has become a symbol of strength and resistance.