News : Faculty
Mona Damluji’s New Children’s Book Featured in the Santa Barbara Independent
On the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, UC Santa Barbara assistant professor Mona Damluji wrote a poem to her daughters to explain why they cannot return to the places their ancestors once called home. That text has now become “I Want You to Know” (Penguin Random House, 2025), a children’s book that brings together poetry and watercolor illustration to reflect on memory, displacement and the legacies of war.
“I want you to know that you are still of the place / That our ancestors have known. / The place that they called home,” Damluji writes.
Published by Seven Stories Press and distributed by Penguin Random House, “I Want You to Know” is written in simple, direct verse and paired with illustrations by Iraqi-Swedish artist Ishtar Bäcklund Dakhil. The book opens a conversation with young readers about family bonds and the lasting impact of war, offering parents language to explain why ancestral lands may no longer be accessible.
Read the rest of the article in the Santa Barbara Independent