Céline Semaan Invites You to Her Sacred Rebellion

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It comes as no surprise that when Céline Semaan begins listing all the women who have been inspiring her as of late, they all happened to be writers. Much like them, she thinks of herself as a “hakawati” or “storyteller” in Arabic, as Semaan tells me. 

She names the late poet and essayist June Jordan and the author adrienne marie brown. She credits Toni Morrison for giving her the “courage” to write about her “discredited stories.” However, it is Egyptian author Nawal El Saadawi and her book Daughter of Isis who Semaan cites as being the spiritual ancestor to Semaan’s debut memoir A Woman is a School. “She's a big, amazing figure for Arab women,” she says. “And has inspired so many of us to really write our lives.”

The writing of her memoir would prove to be the less difficult part for Semaan. As she was preparing for her publisher to release A Woman is a School, her memoir about growing up as a refugee leaving and returning to her war torn country of Lebanon, she was told that it was “not the right time for” her book to come out and that it would be “delayed indefinitely” following the polarizing last few years as Israel continues its genocide against Gaza and Lebanon. 

Undeterred, however, Semaan didn’t allow her publisher’s wavering support to stop her from getting her book published. “We need to be able to own our stories, we need to be able to be the ones telling our stories and humanizing our plight at least,” she says. 

While talking to her one recent afternoon in April over Zoom, she tells me that after pulling the book from her once publisher, she decided to publish it herself with the guidance of several people including librarians, book owners, authors, and other publishers all of whom she says affirmed for her “that there are ways that we can do this in a way that does not jeopardize the reach of this book.”

Once published in September 2024, Semaan says she was able to travel all across Europe and North America to discuss A Woman is a School. She tells me how much the grassroots efforts people took in rallying around her as she promoted her book. “What it created was a really tight-knit community that held this book with me.” she says. ”Some people threw dinner parties for us, and we were able to have deep, meaningful conversations offline.”

The moment Semaan published A Woman is a School, it combined two of her passions: her writing and her work with her non-profit the Slow Factory. She released her book under the newly founded Slow Factory imprint, marking the beginning of the organization’s expansion into the literary world.

In the thirteen years since she co-founded The Slow Factory, the organization continues to expand upon what Semaan says was its mission of bridging “the gap between climate justice work and human rights activism.” 

“Any violation to climate ultimately generates violations towards the humans that are living within that climate or that environment,” Semaan says. “With the use of art, with the use of design, with the use of writing, with the use of installations, and gatherings, we made a case for sustainable living.” 

The non-profit’s message continued to reach people over the years during times of upheaval, such as during the first Trump presidency following his Muslim ban, the protests of 2020, and the ongoing slaughter against Palestinians. Semaan hopes that in the coming years the non-profit expands out from its successful digital space into more physical spaces. 

“They would be a sort of a center for collective liberation,” Semaan tells me. “A center where we share resources, we share workshops and classes, but also host events and a space for communities to gather. To cook together, to dream together, to watch movies together.” 

For now, however, The Slow Factory is continuing in its online dominance. In addition to the imprint and the other educational initiatives that The Slow Factory already does, Samaan just announced her independent media platform, Everything is Political, as a way to combat misinformation and fascism with the truth. “We are transforming,” written in a post on Slow Factory’s Instagram.

“Creation is what I see in the future,” Semaan tells me. That creation is all a part of what she calls in her book a “sacred rebellion.” “What sacred rebellion means to me is to constantly find joy and pleasure and love and friendship and these moments of happiness within the work that we are doing in resisting, in fighting, and organizing and transforming these oppressive systems,” she says. 

Semaan tells me about her affinity for Kahlil Gibran’s book The Prophet. “One of the first chapters of this book where it talks about opening all the roads and I think that now we are in a time where we are asked to create things that never existed before.” she says. “We are creating more ways of being. New pathways, new roads that we can exist.”