APPENDIX IV: Get to know an author - Deirdre Brennan Deirdre is one of the two authors of The Girl Who Lost Her Country. She wrote the book together with Amal de Chickera, a co-Director of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, while she was doing a Fellowship with the organisation. Find out more about what drew her attention to this issue and how she experienced writing a book about it in this interview with Deirdre… 1. When did you first learn about statelessness? In 2011, when I just turned 21, I interned at an anti-human trafficking charity in northern Thailand. The charity is based at the border between Thailand and Myanmar and they run a school for children who, because of their citizenship status, cannot access mainstream schools and universities. I met children and young adults the same age as me who explained to me what statelessness was, and how it was impacting their lives and their ability to enjoy the freedoms I was privilege to. Because of them, I've remained committed to working on this issue ever since. 2. What was the hardest part about writing the book? The nicest/most interesting part? After years of talking about statelessness to other adults I found it quite hard not to use words that were too big or boring! So, at first, I found it difficult to get into the mind of a kid and to know what they would enjoy reading. I thought about my favourite books as a kid, and how I always loved reading about what food the characters ate. Then I remembered my trip to see Neha and her family at their home a few years ago, and how Deepti, Neha’s mother, lay out a spread of foods from around the world, everything from samosas to potato salad. She said she loved cooking foods from different countries because it was a way for her daughters to be able to travel without citizenship. I decided to centre some of the stories in the book around a shared meal or drink, and I ended up having lots of fun researching foods from different parts of the world, while doing my best to describe them in temptingly delicious ways! 3. What do you hope children will learn from the book/take away from the book? I hope this story sparks a curiosity in those who read it, a curiosity to learn more about statelessness, to investigate whether there are stateless populations in their home country, and whether there are local organisations they can support to help end statelessness. 4. Do you have a nationality and if yes, which one? Yes, I'm Irish, although I live in Australia. Irish citizenship entitles me to apply for visas to live, work or even study in different countries, a privilege sadly not afforded to millions of people around the world. 5. When you were in middle school (11-14 years old) what did you want to be when you grow up? I wanted to be a car saleswoman!! This still makes me laugh, especially because I don't even own one car now, never-mind a shop full of them. 6. Planning on writing any more books? I would love to write a sequel to the Girl Who Lost Her Country. There are many more stories of stateless children that I think deserve to be told, including those of the children I met living at the border of northern Thailand all those years ago. Deepti, the mother of Neha and Nikita, said she would love to read part two, and we joked about how it would follow the girls as they enjoyed their newly received citizenship holidaying on a tropical island somewhere! 56