Leena Al-Aali

Leena Abdullah Al-Aali is a visual artist, children’s author, educator, graphic designer and certified trainer.

As a child, she was shy, lacked confidence and often copied her elder sister. Her curiosity produced an endless stream of questions, but her father—may God have mercy on him—recognised the ability behind them. He celebrated her smallest achievements, displayed her drawings with pride and treated learning as a family value. She became a diligent pupil and an avid reader, moving from The Green Garden, Mickey and Majid magazines to Abeer novels and the works of Naguib Mahfouz. Anis Mansour’s ‘Around the World in 200 Days’ made a particularly strong impression on her.

After secondary school, she hesitated between English and visual art. The advice of an art-loving aunt and the encouragement of her father led her to visual arts at Qatar University. Dr Laila Allam, then Head of Art Education, supported her and influenced the childlike quality of her early style. She placed second in a university competition, maintained a high grade-point average, studied the work of Joan Miró and developed her technique further through private art lessons in Cairo.

Teaching and the responsibility of raising and educating her children kept her away from active artistic practice for many years. Once they had grown, she returned with determination, completed training courses and mounted her first exhibition at Katara. Entitled ‘Zahw’, a word associated with pride and splendour, it received strong media coverage and drew figures from the artistic, literary and social worlds. Gulf and Arab engagements followed, including forums in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and participation in Katara’s murals. Her growing interest in representations of women led to a second Katara exhibition, ‘Female Features’, in 2018, while her paintings were also shown in China, Kuwait and Jordan.

Writing developed alongside painting. Author Thoraya Nafea encouraged her to read more widely until she acquired confidence in creative writing. Her first story, ‘Edeida Ya Hababa’, was published by Platinum Book. Although her first entry for a children’s-literature prize did not win, she continued through courses at Al Jazeera Media Institute and a children’s-writing workshop at Qatar National Library. She began adapting stories she had written in English into Arabic and illustrated the resulting children’s books herself.

The growth of local publishing gave the work a wider route to readers. With Rosa Publishing House, she issued ‘The Book with Legs’ and then ‘Desert Rose’, which was translated into Chinese. From 2015, she maintained a rhythm of one story a year. In 2019, she won third place in the best theatrical-text competition organised by the Theater Affairs Center with the Qatari Forum for Authors.

In 2020, she delivered a three-month initiative in children’s literature with the Qatari Forum for Authors. She also worked with Qatar University Press and Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press on a proposed story series, while ‘The Bead of Al Yarawa’ and ‘Abdul Rahman, Conqueror of Cancer’ were produced in cooperation with Lusail Publishing House. She later received a nomination from His Excellency the Minister of Culture and Sports to write six science-fiction-based historical stories for children and young adults, each centred on a historical or archaeological site in Qatar.

Her cultural activity also included the large ‘Feather and Ink’ event during the blockade and the organisation of traditional performances in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Sports. She delivered courses in writing for children with Future Writers and the Eid Charity Foundation and remained active in forums concerned with children’s literature.

The route was shaped by difficulties as well as achievement. She struggled with Arabic pronunciation as a child because she spoke English until the fourth grade, and the anxiety remained with her even after she became a high-achieving pupil. Returning to art after years away also required extensive training to understand new developments and form a language of her own. The most painful break came with her father’s death at three in the morning on a Ramadan night. The later deaths of her aunt’s husband and her cousin on the same day, together with anaemia and a return to the hospital where her father had died, deepened a period of depression.

Broadcaster Hassan Al-Sai helped restore her confidence by asking what she still wanted from life. Her answer was to return to art with strength and purpose. A workshop for artists became a new beginning, followed by membership of the Qatar Fine Arts Society and later service on its board. Aisha Al-Kuwari of Rosa Publishing House similarly encouraged her to enter children’s literature. The disappointments of an early competition became an incentive to attend workshops, read more deeply and overcome the childhood fear that she could not master Arabic. Pen and brush thus became the means by which she rebuilt both her work and herself.